Cybersecurity is now a topic of discussion and concern for even the smallest organisations today. No business is immune to cyber breaches after all, and companies are keen to deploy the right cybersecurity expertise for protecting their data, networks and other infrastructure.
Providing cybersecurity services on an outsourced basis, EFutures has garnered experience for determining the right set of tools and expertise to detect and remedy cyber breaches. Here, we share those insights, plus how any business can assess their security posture to deploy the correct frameworks for timely threat detection and incident response.
Delegating cybersecurity over to dedicated vendors or software outsourcing companies can offer organisations the key benefit of accessing nothing short of the best security expertise. No matter what each business’s security loopholes and requirements may be, a reliable cybersecurity provider can help identify what is deficient, and how relevant solutions can be adopted to fix and remediate problem areas.
This can be a boon for organisations that don’t have a cybersecurity department to begin with. Additionally, companies that do have cybersecurity units still stand to significantly benefit, as they can now work one-on-one with security professionals in order to protect network perimeters, data and cloud infrastructure on the daily – and usually on a 24/7 basis as well.
This can improve productivity for in-house cybersecurity teams that may be experiencing resource crunches, as they’ll now have better insight on reducing error rates among threat alerts, and focusing their attention on tackling threats that have a significant propensity to cause damage.
Leading managed cybersecurity services shall possess the expertise to also adhere to compliance standards. Now, with cybersecurity and compliance going hand-in-hand, regulatory bodies expect organisations to meet their requirements by justifying strong security across all assets and infrastructure. This becomes even more crucial when regulations are specific to a certain industry or region; at this point, companies need to meet more requirements, else risk failing audits, having licences revoked and subsequently halting business operations.
Top cybersecurity providers, be they dedicated vendors or software outsourcing companies, often narrow their services to certain industries, regions and even use cases. In turn, this can offer businesses clarification on whether the vendor they are eyeing can deliver based on the industry or location they work in.
A managed cybersecurity provider, including software outsourcing companies, will deliver 100% uptime when it comes to threat hunting and detection. A round-the-clock Security Operations Centre (SOC) is an essential offering by leading providers of cybersecurity, which therefore helps businesses rest assured that no breach is going unnoticed. Coupled with advanced expertise that uses both automation and human knowledge, managed cybersecurity services can accommodate optimal protection for your business data and networks, while quarantining or remediating threats in the middle of the night, or on holidays.
Additional services such as DRaaS (Disaster Recovery as a Service), which may be part of your cybersecurity vendor’s umbrella of offerings, can be integrated to get systems up and running even when a compromise happens. As a result, managed cybersecurity services can enable business continuity, even in the wake of a breach.
Before implementing any kind of security program within your organisation, it is crucial to always assess what’s lacking, what needs to be addressed, and how. Unlike most other business assessments that can be done solely with internal team members, a cybersecurity assessment is best conducted with additional support from external vendors, in order to get a thorough and objective viewpoint on the existing security posture of your business. However, beginning with an internal assessment can help pave the way for successive assessments that can be done via third parties.
If your organisation already has a cybersecurity unit, tasking them with the job of conducting vulnerability, risk, perimeter, policy and even privacy assessments can serve as the very first step. In the absence of an in-house cybersecurity team, your IT team should still be able to offer insight in these areas.
Additionally, if your organisation already partners with a software outsourcing company to build software, involving them in this discussion can offer extensions of what has already been identified by your IT team.
Following discussions, gather all your assessment findings into a brief; this shall then serve as a formal point of reference for third-party security consultations.
Consult relevant cybersecurity vendors to now assess your organisation’s security posture. While this is a step that could be omitted, it is always highly recommended as it helps offer a second (or third) opinion pertaining to the security needs of your organisation. This is wise even in the presence of your software outsourcing company being your cybersecurity partner, as it shall enable them to obtain greater clarity on the attack surfaces and vectors that may be unique to your business.
Alternatively, your software outsourcing company can also conduct this assessment on behalf of your organisation. This way, they can corroborate any findings, and ensure that their suggested courses of action are indeed optimal. In the meantime, you may be afforded the convenience of your software outsourcing partner doing all the legwork on your behalf, in due course of these external security assessments.
Once all assessments are concluded, your security vendor or outsourcing partner should now be able to determine the following, in order to build a blueprint:
Once your cybersecurity framework is deployed, your experts need to now continuously monitor your business networks and any other relevant infrastructure to keep threats at bay. This is a 24/7 effort, without a doubt, as cyber breaches can occur at any time. In addition to adhering to the cybersecurity framework that was initially built for implementation, your cybersecurity partners need to also constantly monitor the relevance of this framework with the passage of time.
This means that the tools and expertise your cybersecurity or IT outsourcing partner utilises need to keep up with the range and scope of cyber breaches – as they are always evolving owing to zero-day threats being discovered frequently. From threat intelligence feeds to automated incident triage, assessing your cybersecurity resources to determine processes that fail to offer value (especially in terms of detecting and contextualising threats) can serve as an indicator to update your current security stack, so your teams are always equipped with tools that genuinely support their work – and ensure no threat goes unnoticed.
Outsourcing cybersecurity services is always a highly productive way to improve both DevSecOps and SecOps within an organisation. Managed security vendors and/or software outsourcing companies make this possible by:
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