Today, cybersecurity leaders are feeling more pressure than ever to ensure they stop the next cyber attack from happening. The cybersecurity threat environment has changed drastically from the “Love Bug” virus of 2001. Today, cybercrime is big business, a billion-dollar profit-motivated enterprise. Organizations should be forceful in their own security and assume that there will be attacks against them.
Amid this evolving threat environment, application whitelisting, also known as allowlisting, has emerged as one of the most effective strategies for preventing unauthorized access. This preventive strategy, that goes only as far as to permit approved applications to operate on systems, minimizes the possibility of malware breach. Experts like Yuriy Tsibere, Product Manager and Business Analyst at ThreatLocker, underscore the importance of simple changes to default settings. These small, simple adjustments help quickly fill big security holes on both web and mobile.
The Evolution of Cyber Threats
Cyber bad actors have experienced a radical evolution in the past 20 years. More sophisticated malware variants and advanced persistent threats continue to increase exponentially. What’s obvious now is that the old paradigms of security are insufficient to keep us safe. When the “Love Bug” virus was released, it threw countries into complete disarray. Now, cybercriminal enterprises have matured, acting with significantly more sophistication and purpose.
Today’s attackers only need one successful attempt to compromise a system. This unfortunate truth brings home the importance of ensuring that organizations have robust default settings to constantly stay on defense. For example, shutting down non-essential services and deploying robust security postures can significantly minimize exposure.
Industry frameworks like NIST, ISO, CIS and HIPAA provide direction on cybersecurity’s best practices. Many forward-looking organizations have found that these frameworks tend to stop short of providing the explicit, concrete guidance needed for implementation to actually work. This mismatch can create a significant gap in understanding and result in weak security postures across organizations.
Practical Measures for Enhanced Security
To strengthen their defenses, cybersecurity teams should look to a few essential initiatives that can be deployed rapidly and efficiently. An easy first step is to turn off the keylogger Windows feature. That’s never a good idea, and it can leak your sensitive information to attackers. By disabling this default feature, enterprises reduce their exposure to avoidable security hazards.
As for the other immediate action, disabling Office macros, this is actually one of the most common attack vectors for ransomware. However, with only a five minutes investment of time, agencies and nonprofits alike can drastically improve their defenses against these types of threats. These three basic changes to default settings can make significant obstacles to typical cyber intrusions.
Additionally, default policies such as deny-by-default and multi-factor authentication (MFA) enforcement are pivotal in creating a defense-in-depth security strategy. Using application Ringfencing correctly can cut out whole types of risk completely. For example, it limits application access to only the resources the applications need to run.
The Role of Managed Detection and Response Services
As cyber threats are increasing in both sophistication and frequency. Organizations can receive 24/7 monitoring along with a wide array of valuable support by engaging Managed Detection and Response (MDR) services. MDR services offer rapid response assistance, including after-hours support. This ensures that institutions can draw upon this expertise precisely when they need it the most.
These services offer monitoring and detection capabilities, but allow organizations to quickly respond to an incident with actionable intelligence. Businesses can improve their cybersecurity stand in by leveraging outside expertise. This enables them to focus on their core business objectives, unencumbered by the added intricacies of threat defense.