Inoculate Your Company Against Security Data Gaps to Develop Cyber Immunity

Written by Arti Raman, CEO and Founder, Titaniam.

Protecting sensitive customer data, or personally identifiable information (PII), is a high priority for companies in verticals ranging from financial services to healthcare and retail. Chief information security officers (CISOs) for these industry organizations know that safeguarding this data creates customer trust and avoids costly compliance violations and lawsuits. That’s why CISOs and data protection officers rigorously apply National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) controls to all data classified as PII. No one wants to be the next headline on CNBC or a cautionary case study in a cybersecurity publication.

Yet the reality is these risks pale next to another enterprise challenge: protecting security data. It is vital that IT and cybersecurity teams maintain and protect information about enterprise networks, asset configurations, unpatched vulnerabilities, and other security analytics.

Security Data Cyber Attacks Cause Serious Damage

This information contains the keys to the kingdom: data that can be used to launch a multitude of devastating attacks. Security data can be used to launch supply chain attacks that harm hundreds or thousands of customers. Attacks on government services or critical infrastructure can compromise the security and operations of a nation, states, or communities. A recent survey found that 80 percent of businesses that paid ransoms experienced a second attack, and nearly half were likely from the same digital threat group. The only solution is to inoculate organizations against these significant gaps that attackers can and will exploit.

Security data must be safeguarded. However, IT and security personnel must actively use it to monitor and maintain their company's network and assets, while cloud and managed service providers' customers also desire access to their systems. So, how can CISOs be sure their security program is top-notch?

Develop Cyber Immunity

To develop an effective cyber immunity strategy and protect their security data, companies need to be able to accomplish three goals: ensure valuable data and intellectual property can’t be stolen, make exfiltrated data ineffective for extortion, and immediately restore disrupted services.

This strategy uses an array of data protection techniques, such as encryption-in-use, traditional encryption, private data release, customer-controlled keys, and enterprise-wide key orchestration, to safeguard data. The source security data always maintains its encrypted-in-use status, and an encrypted search index is automatically created based on pre-declared search types. As a result, security data can be safely used and remain protected throughout its entire lifecycle.

So, what happens if networks are breached? Hackers can no longer utilize stolen administrator credentials to maneuver laterally and vertically inside enterprise networks, extract ransoms, or both. Where previously, attackers might linger in business networks for 287 days before security teams even noticed.

Safeguard Security Data at the Field Level

Security data continues to be protected by encryption-in-use and will not yield clear text, even if breached using the highest privilege credentials. That means data is being protected down to the individual field level, offering granular protections, and ensuring data-compromised-proof systems.

Data security protection plugs some major gaps for companies today. Some 61 percent of cyberattacks use stolen user credentials to access networks; CISOs know that stolen administrator privileges and other security data cause the worst damage. In addition, unpatched vulnerabilities are the preferred threat vector for ransomware groups. Thus, protecting these lists can add another layer of defense and help prevent a ransomware attack, which costs $4.24 million on average, and can completely disable business operations.

The Security Data Problem

Cyberattackers are getting more sophisticated. They’re selling stolen credentials, productionized and weaponized malware, and data on vulnerabilities on criminal marketplaces, increasing the velocity and impact of attacks. NIST reported finding 18,738 vulnerabilities in 2021, and the list is by no means definitive. Meanwhile, companies’ fast-paced digital growth means more systems to protect.

Maintaining the status quo no longer matters. Zero-trust data security lets firms keep the kingdom's keys safe. They can inoculate themselves against ransomware and many extortion attempts. They can also promptly meet important regulation data protection obligations, a common pain area for many companies. Zero-trust data security technologies give field-level auditable verification that NIST-certified encryption survived attacks.

It's easier than you think to become cyber-immune from disabling ransomware attacks and external dumps of security data. Deploy a zero-trust data security platform today.