Security Spotlight: Navigating the Cybersecurity Landscape and Illuminating the Dark Corners of the Web
Evolving Strategies for Managing Expanding Attack Surfaces
Overview
As remote work gained incredible traction and an already-existing digital transformation accelerated, the domain of attack surface management, as previously understood, has changed profoundly. Modern infrastructures are normally spread over multiple endpoints, cloud services and third-party applications, which makes it difficult to get a sense of what is going on and ensure compliance. WME’s chief, Matt Tinney, addresses the challenges that Chief Information Security Officers (CISOs) struggle with when it comes to securing the ever-evolving attack surfaces of their companies.
Impact
The attack surface has expanded as we shift to a cloud-heavy decentralization, combined with the move to mobile devices, resulting in a huge transition from a perimeter-centric security approach. In this new era, with employees working from anywhere around the world at any time of the day, protecting data becomes a challenge. Out-of-sync, buggy asset inventories have an incomplete posture of the attack surface, which can easily put organizations at risk from subdomain takeovers or server misconfigurations. Of course, CISOs are expected to strike a balance between all the new types of attacks they must be protected from and limited resources with growing demands on the business and regulatory pressures.
Recommendation
To create an accurate picture of your security landscape and to ensure constant coverage of the attack surface, CISOs will need to include real-time monitoring platforms in this comprehensive exercise so as to include automated response capabilities. This will enable them to quickly recognize risks and take on high-priority in-house threats. Tools that continuously scan your assets and maintain automated inventories ensure that you have a fully up-to-date picture of all your assets. Additionally, a cloud-native technique to feed those findings back into workflows assists in automating the detection and response processes, resulting in faster and less manual work. In this manner, your teams will be able to spend time remediating actual risks, mitigating false positives.
How NIS2 Will Reshape Cybersecurity Across Sectors
Overview
The NIS2 Directive is set to bring sweeping changes to cybersecurity practices in several sectors. Basically, they are pushing themselves beyond the confines of purely IT security. The regulation will now impact nearly all sectors critical to societal and economic stability. NIS2 establishes new national governance obligations regarding compliance and oversight in these sectors, and raises cybersecurity to a top-line focus of organizational leadership.
Impact
NIS2 expands cybersecurity compliance to more than 110,000 entities across the EU, a substantial increase from the NIS1 Directive. Particularly, all these sectors will face strict deadlines for incident reporting and will need to implement cybersecurity. This encompasses things like cybersecurity training for executives, risk insight sharing with leadership teams, and compliance planning. Registration with and compliance with cyber authorities will also improve overall accountability for organizations.
Additionally, the updated regulations will force crucial infrastructure suppliers i.e. corporations in the power and health sectors, to contend with extra regulatory complexities and examine supply chains. It will also escalate third-party risks and necessitate more technology investments. Noting the above hurdles, compliance with NIS2 is nevertheless a chance for organizations to enhance their resilience to the evolving threat of cyberattacks.
Recommendation
Organizations impacted by NIS2 must prioritize the following:
Governance and Risk Management: Cybersecurity decision-making should not be made in a vacuum. It must be integrated with the business objectives.
Incident Reporting: Ensure compliance with the strict reporting timelines set by NIS2. Maintain it thorough documentation for cross-functional coordination.
Supply Chain Security: Implement robust monitoring of third-party vendors to mitigate risks.
How Nation-States Exploit Political Instability to Launch Cyber Operations
Overview
In a period of political turmoil, we see the emergence of cyberattacks both organically and orchestrated as part of geopolitical strategy. For instance, instability creates opportunities for nation-states and politically motivated groups to exploit such insecurity against the US through weaponized cyber operations. They are targeting governments, critical infrastructure, and defense, because these are the high-value targets to cause disruption of key operations and tactical advantage in businesses.
The growing application of cyberspace in warfare is further illustrated by cyber operations during Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the ongoing tension between India and Pakistan. One of the key objectives of these conflicts is the collection of intelligence into adversarial activities targeting U.S. and allied interests. That said, we should be able to disrupt adversary operations and even influence regional dominance.
Impact
In this environment of geopolitical insatiability, cyberattacks will become more common and deadly. Keep in mind: the internet has no physical borders. A conflict in one theatre can then have cyber reverberations around the world. Unlike the normal types of hackers, these groups, usually supported by a nation-state, work in a far more tactical approach that is quite difficult for an ordinary business to deal with. They usually focus on important sectors i.e. energy and water supply, through attacks that intend either to disrupt essential services or to breach the integrity of data necessary for survival.
Supply chains are also at risk. They are falling prey to cyberattacks aspiring to get intelligence or to create a larger-scale disruption to their operations. The Russian cyber activities during the Ukraine war, China in the South China Sea, and new US election interference operations by two US adversaries: Iran and Russia, provide evidence for why states believe that hacking is an ideal tool to exploit states’ vulnerabilities.
Recommendation
Organizations need to consider geopolitical risks as part of their threat-mitigating model and should be proactive in adopting relevant defense strategies.
Key actions include:
- Monitor threat intelligence for nation-state cyber signals
- Conduct vulnerability assessments and harden configurations to protect the supply chain.
- Fortify areas such as the Energy sector against disruptions.
- Apply role-centric zero-trust security model
- Training of employees on cyber hygiene, phishing recognition and security fundamentals on a regular basis.
Quantum Computing: Risks and Strategic Considerations for Businesses
Overview
Quantum computing is surely a game-changing tech that relies on the whims of quantum mechanics to create machines capable of solving problems that are higher in complexity than classical ones. It comes with some unmatched velocity and computational power. This thing gives it immense potential for building amazing new prospects. This rapid growth of quantum computing surely creates an environment of opportunity but with a potential dark side: new risks to businesses and new ways to navigate strategic uncertainties.
Impact
Quantum has the exceptional ability to crack existing encryption methods i.e. RSA. This fact poses a major cybersecurity threat as once these computers mature; they will potentially be able to decrypt any secure communications. They might then enable adversaries to hack systems and get access to classified information. Ultimately, there will be a big threat to national security and organizational integrity of many companies.
Moreover, the complexity of implementing quantum computing may limit access to SMEs. Rival businesses and state-backed unethical hacker groups can also exploit this innovation to increase global tech tensions and disparities.
Recommendation
Businesses need to take three critical approaches now in preparation for the quantum era:
- Quantum-Safe Encryption
- Secure Valuable Assets
Engage with Cloud Providers & Partners: Drive discussions related to quantum strategies as they relate to cloud providers. You also need to engage in conversations about how supply chain partners are preparing for quantum. Make sure your operations across all levels (Corporate Strategy & Security) can last through this impending shift.
Balancing Legal Compliance and Enterprise Security Governance
Overview
Regulations like HIPAA and GDPR are growing rapidly, and many organizations are striving to keep pace with their requirements. Companies are also striving to simultaneously maintain their comprehensive enterprise security governance. This balance is especially important as you may now need to secure data and adhere to changing privacy standards.
Impact
The emergence of intricate laws compels you to start embracing a more strategic approach towards privacy management. Old-school risk-based approaches, while handy, now need to be supplemented with a privacy-by-design framework. This approach ensures that security controls are not integrated after system development but rather designed into the system. And this will bring you down to less of a chance of vulnerabilities and compliance gaps.
However, a lack of collaboration internally among IT, legal, security teams, etc. can often create policies that seem disconnected. Unifying security and governance requires the alignment of all these functions.
Recommendation
Security teams need to inform clearly the boards of directors about complianc-related cyber risks. There should be some routine of periodic reporting on these matters. This way, they will be able to manage risks even without having any technical knowledge, as they can oversee risk management through dashboards utilizing key metrics like mean time to detect (MTTD) and mean time to respond (MTTR).
They also must sharply delineate lines of responsibility between the CIO and CISO. That’s how they prevent conflict of interest and provide an unbiased perspective to the governance of security. Having said that, companies should promote interdepartmental communication. They should also try to get legal and IT/security teams together to align on policies. Additionally, boards should include cyber prevention as part of their ongoing governance processes and link cyber risk with enterprise-wide risk.
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WME Cybersecurity Briefings 037
