Live Patching and Awareness Efforts Play Central Roles in Establishing a Robust Security Posture

The current digital environment is home to a plethora of reachable targets and now nearly every company, regardless of its sector or size, has day-to-day operations on the line that are potentially at risk due to cyberattacks. With ever-evolving technology creating new safety challenges and data continuing to be produced and stored in vast volumes, the attack surface has become more exploitable with a growing number of vulnerabilities and gaps for criminal hackers to exploit.

According to the second annual State of Cyber Assets Report (SCAR) released by JupiterOne, organizations that were evaluated in the report saw a 589% increase in the number of security vulnerabilities and unresolved findings. This shocking increase was a direct result of improper enterprise management of the cloud and unpatched or outdated legacy systems that placed the security of the businesses in jeopardy. However, the expansion of cloud-based attacks is only becoming more common across the threat landscape and is placing intense pressure on already underfunded, understaffed, and overworked IT teams.

Unfortunately, striving for reduced complexity is not going to be an option for security teams in 2023. Instead, they must rethink the definition of cybersecurity and make room for a more flexible and resilient security ecosystem that is grounded in modern and automated solutions. 

Establish A Security Ecosystem of Resilience 

The most effective approach to achieving a resilient security ecosystem starts with the establishment of a comprehensive monitoring system that detects attacks as quickly as possible with swift remediation tactics in place. Security monitoring refers to the process of analyzing several logs or network devices (servers, firewalls, switches, etc.) for potential security incidents. Often, a security incident and event management (SIEM) system is used to aggregate, consolidate, and normalize stored data. With this system in place, suspicious activity can be quickly identified and brought to human attention to determine if it represents a threat to the business. 

Patching is another crucial step an organization needs to take to protect itself from ransomware and various cyberattacks. In a world where sophisticated cybercrime runs rampant, unpatched vulnerabilities are a ticking time bomb waiting to be exploited.

According to a 2022 report released by Ponemon, organizations face a variety of obstacles to achieving timely patching of vulnerabilities, despite spending an average of $3.5 million annually and more than 1,000 hours weekly monitoring systems for threats and vulnerabilities, patching, documenting, and reporting the results. Yes, organizations can certainly implement advanced threat protection, end-point security, and zero trust, but those solutions do not lessen the serious hurdle that proper patch management has become. 

Enforce Live Patching Options to Cut Costs and Buy Back Time

Currently, conventional patching is often the go-to process of loading updated versions of software to fix bugs and apply patches to fix specific vulnerabilities.

But far too often, the patching process is delayed by weeks or months (or even worse) due to its tedious and labor-intensive process that can overwhelm IT teams and interrupt valuable business operations. This means that urgent vulnerability repairs get placed on a back burner until a more convenient time is found.

Meanwhile, cybercriminals are given an all-access pass to exploit businesses and increase ransomware attacks. Improving vulnerability management involves applying automation to the day-to-day process.

With automated live patching, the risk can be greatly reduced and can transform the security process for three distinct reasons: 

• It eliminates the need to wait for maintenance windows in which systems can be rebooted or serviced. Limiting the high-risk window when a critical vulnerability is found, it lowers the chances that an organization will fall victim to an exploited and unpatched vulnerability resulting in a ransomware attack, data breach, or both. 
• Restarts and reboots can be risky and highly disruptive to an organization’s business operations. Having a system in place that applies automatic patches can greatly reduce downtime.
• Labor cost savings can be substantial. Dedicated security teams often give up valuable time and heavy labor to plan and execute maintenance windows when those needed resources can be reallocated to tasks that are more strategic to the business.

Encourage A Culture of Security Awareness

As cybercrime evolves, human error remains one of the largest risks to data security. It has become clear over the years that compromised credentials and the systems that manage credentials are, alongside unpatched services, one of the key routes through which cybercriminals successfully gain access to company systems.

All humans make mistakes, but there can be dangerous repercussions to individual privacy and organizational security if employee security education is not prioritized within business operations.

From weak passwords, and failing to install software security updates in a timely manner, to accidentally revealing sensitive information and clicking on phishing emails, employee error can manifest itself in a  multitude of ways that can make an organization an easy target for data breaches. 

With more organizations switching to digital business models to accommodate hybrid employees, there has been a significant increase in fraudulent offers, ransomware, and harassment issues.

Establishing consistent, basic threat detection and cybersecurity training for employees is a must. Through responsible internet usage, strengthening passwords, and using multi-factor authentication or VPN tools, employees can learn to quickly recognize, react and respond to threats. Cybercriminals are continuously evolving their hacking efforts, becoming more sophisticated and more difficult to detect every time.

Anticipating new attacks through threat modeling and adapting security measures that will defend an attack before it becomes a vulnerability is crucial to staying ahead of a devastating breach. 

By driving the need for a flexible and resilient security ecosystem, businesses and IT leaders can confidently defend themselves against an aggressive threat landscape for years to come.

To share your ideas on Live Patching and other Infosec techniques, please write to us at sghosh@itechseries.com