Lean into Security: Take the Next Step toward Securing Your Organization

For any security leader, evolving the cybersecurity strategy is key to advancing your organization’s maturity level. The primary motivation is often risk reduction, but there are other compelling drivers, too. Many need to demonstrate a level of security hygiene to do business, enter new markets, or even lower cyber insurance premiums.  

Regardless of these motivations, it’s crucial to remember that security should enable business growth, helping your business achieve its core goals—whether that’s increasing revenue, market share, or customer demand. One effective way to support these goals is to move toward a forward-leaning security program. 

What Is Forward-Leaning Security? 

A forward-leaning security approach goes beyond the basics, taking a proactive approach to shrinking the attack surface and mitigating the impact of potential incidents. This may sound standard, but specific controls and processes distinguish a forward-leaning program from traditional ones.  

Achieving a forward-leaning security program is a journey, one that starts with mastering the fundamentals and then adding advanced layers of protection. 

Establishing Fundamental Security Controls 

Before diving into more advanced strategies, building a strong foundation of fundamental security controls is key. These are the bedrock of any mature security program, and they include:  

• Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR): Helps identify and respond to malicious activities on endpoints in real time, offering critical insights into potential threats

• Web and Email Gateways: Serve as the first line of defense, filtering malicious content before it can impact the organization

• Next-Gen Firewalls and IDS/IPS: Provide robust network security, controlling access and identifying potentially harmful traffic

• Access Control: Enforce principles of least privilege to limit chances of unauthorized access

• Network Segmentation: Isolates parts of the network to prevent an attacker from moving laterally if they manage to gain entry 

A mature vulnerability management program is essential, too. This includes asset discovery, vulnerability scanning, prioritization, and patching. In today’s cloud-heavy environment, configuration management is also critical, as misconfigurations are a common cause of data breaches. Securing containers in the cloud environment is also important, given their rising use in modern applications. 

This list of fundamental security controls is by no means exhaustive. Many firms have their own priorities, but mastering these fundamentals will provide a strong foundation for the next phase of security maturity. 

Moving toward Forward-Leaning Security 

Once the basics are covered, forward-leaning security tactics take a more proactive and sophisticated approach.  

Here are several key areas that can help advance your security maturity model and provide a significant competitive advantage: 

1. Integrity Monitoring

Knowing what “normal” looks like in your environment enables you to set thresholds for alerts when deviations occur. Integrity monitoring tools provide visibility into changes in files, configurations, or systems, which can indicate the presence of unauthorized access or tampering. 

2. Adversary Simulation

Traditional penetration testing is valuable, but adversary simulation takes it a step further by mimicking sophisticated malefactors’ tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs). This reveals how attackers could penetrate defenses and what they could do once inside. 

3. Secure Collaboration

Today’s organizations collaborate with external partners, sharing sensitive information across boundaries. Secure collaboration tools allow them to control who can access data, even after it has left the internal network. 

4. Dynamic Application Security Testing (DAST)

Applications are one of the main entry points for attackers, so they require continuous testing. DAST simulates a range of attacks to identify vulnerabilities within applications. It also examines applications as they run to find weaknesses in a live environment. 

5. Shared Threat Intelligence

Threat intelligence is particularly powerful when shared across the security ecosystem. A forward-leaning security program integrates threat intelligence into its security tools, creating a collective awareness that amplifies the program’s ability to respond to emerging threats. 

6. Automated Response

Automation allows entities to react to threats faster than humans can. With automated playbooks, tasks triggered by specific conditions can be executed at machine speed to mitigate threats. Automate repetitive, arduous tasks to reduce the burden on security personnel and decrease response times.  

7. Tailored Security Awareness Training (SAT)

A one-size-fits-all approach to training often falls short. Tailoring training to individual behaviors and roles can build a strong culture of security and limit risky actions. A forward-leaning security program understands that when employees are aware of their security responsibilities, they become valuable assets in defending against cyber threats. 

Where to Go from Here 

Adopting a forward-leaning security program isn’t a one-time achievement but a process that involves continuous improvement. Here are a few steps to help guide your journey: 

• Set Clear Goals: What are the primary objectives for your security program? Are you aiming to reduce risk, comply with new regulations, or prepare for potential market expansion? Having clear goals will help you prioritize and direct your security efforts effectively.