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Mind the Gap: Raising Threat Defenses in the Hybrid Workplace

Mind the Gap: Raising Threat Defenses in the Hybrid Workplace

With ransomwar and phishing attacks on the rise, a recent survey confirmed what many in the industry already believed – IT security teams are overstretched and ill-equipped to protect their organizations. This article explains why it’s time to rethink cybersecurity strategy with better threat defenses.

Cyber risk at an all-time high and the increasing complexity of IT infrastructure is leaving organizations more vulnerable than ever before. Every year new cybersecurity technologies emerge — yet breaches still occur. Organizations strive to develop a better security posture, but the dizzying array of options leaves resource-constrained IT and security leaders wondering how to proceed.

The shift to remote working is only exacerbating the issue. An estimated 95% of security issues are the result of employees allowing a breach. Ever more complex IT infrastructures now offer a growing attack surface that extends past corporate firewalls to the home networks and personal devices of remote workers. Over half of security leaders (52%) now struggle to protect remote workers’ devices. A similar number feel burnt out and are thinking about resigning due to increasing work pressures.

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Constantly Playing Catch-up

Trying to protect against cyberattacks can sometimes feel like an endless game of security whack-a-mole. However, it’s not just about becoming less reactive and more proactive in how we deal with threats.

It’s well understood that speed of action usually determines whether a cyber attack fails or succeeds. But stretched in-house support teams must cover the whole IT stack and might not be available 24/7 or have a dedicated security specialist with the right skills. Unfortunately, with business priorities elsewhere, many have under-invested in maintaining robust threat defense processes, resulting in weak password management, irregular patching, and unclear threat handling and escalation processes.

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Even when firms do invest in the latest technologies to boost their threat detection and response, breaches still occur. All too often the problem is not because a tool failed to raise an alert, but because the alert was missed or ignored.

Two in five UK IT teams are overwhelmed by security alerts and struggle to find the needle of a real threat in the haystack of false alerts. Equally worryingly, 27% of security professionals didn’t feel equipped to spot a cyber threat and 30% admit to not knowing how to use their organization’s security tools effectively. Worse still, over half (55%) admit they’ve ignored an identified cybersecurity issue to prioritize other business activity.

Re-Strategizing Resilience

Rather than continually adding tools and complexity, it’s time to start building security operations that truly empower cybersecurity experts to lead response.

Many organizations rely on in-house teams to manage security, but lots of firms can’t afford a team of highly-trained cybersecurity experts providing sufficient round-the-clock cover.

Self-managed approaches are frequently overcome by today’s sophisticated cyber criminals. Traditional Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) and Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) systems can result in blind spots and excessive noise from false positives, leaving internal teams struggling to identify and manage threats effectively.

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A new approach is required to overcome the mounting challenges of rising cyber crime, inadequate resources and the shortcomings of tools. companies are increasingly leveraging the skills of a strategic security partner.

Developing a More Robust Security Posture

Many companies are discovering that the fastest and most cost-effective way to strengthen resilience is by partnering with a specialist Security Operations Center (SOC) provider. Already equipped with the right human expertise and latest Cloud-native technologies, SOC as-a-Service (SOCaaS) solutions enable organizations to boost internal teams, accelerating threat response and applying learning to strengthen resilience over time.

Look for a provider with proven abilities to boost your organization’s threat defense, detection and rapid response capabilities. They should complement your in-house skillset with a dedicated 24/7 expert security team who will act rapidly to identify real threats and collaborate with you until an incident is resolved. Your MSP should also assist you to better understand the strategic implications of an attack and help to improve your long-term organizational resilience.

As more businesses transition to hybrid and remote working models, organizations need strategic security partners who can detect and resolve threats quickly across their entire IT infrastructure, along with in-depth knowledge of the evolving landscape and expertise to provide actionable steps to develop a more robust long-term security posture.  Working as an extension of in-house teams, SOCaaS makes it fast and easy for organizations of any size to deploy world-class security operations that continually guard against attacks in an efficient and sustainable way.

[To share your insights with us, please write to sghosh@martechseries.com]

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