March 20, 2023
Why enterprises should proactively search for cyber security gaps
As businesses continue their fight against cyber crime, IT decision makers need to continue to evolve and enhance their cyber resilience strategy. The global threat landscape has never been more ominous; 96% of organisations fall victim to email phishing.
South Africa is the second most targeted country on the continent when it comes to ransomware attacks. In the last few years, there have been several high-profile cyber security breaches making news headlines.
Cyber attacks have become more sophisticated, leaving tech professionals to adapt to an ever-changing threat landscape. Security and IT teams must level up their methods of defence. This includes proactively searching for cyber security gaps.
Threat hunting: a proactive approach to security
With the growing concern about cyber security, threat hunting helps to give organisations the upper hand in the cyber wars. While most people understand that attackers can use advanced technologies to target their businesses, they may not realise that threat hunting allows organisations to do the same.
Threat hunting enables businesses to target cyber criminals, preventing security incidents before they can do any lasting damage. Enterprises that proactively search for cyber security gaps using advanced technologies can greatly enhance their cyber resilience. By proactively hunting for threats, IT teams can deepen their understanding of what is happening on the business network.
Threat hunting includes:
- Monitoring the network for suspicious activity.
- Using network traffic analysis to detect abnormal activity that may indicate a breach or other malicious activity in progress.
- Monitoring threat intelligence feeds for new threats and zero-day vulnerabilities, and using them as an early warning system when they appear on the internet.
- Finding hidden threats within the environment before they can cause damage or disrupt business operations.
Detect anomalies, not just breaches
While detecting breaches is important, organisations should also be on the lookout for anomalies. These are things that don't belong in the environment, like an email with a suspicious attachment or an employee logging into work from an unfamiliar location.
Anomalies can be signs of a breach or insider threat, both of which are major cyber security threats that enterprises must actively monitor and guard against. This can be done through proactive detection techniques, such as behavioural analytics and machine learning algorithms.
Stop attackers before they get inside your network
One of the most important things to remember when building a cyber security strategy is that prevention is better than cure. It's simply not possible to detect and block every attack on the network, so it's critical that organisations use automation to stop attackers before they get inside the network.
Businesses should also consider threat hunting as part of a layered approach to security. Threat hunters look for suspicious activity in real time. This enables security teams to identify threats early on before they become more serious problems. It prevents damage to the company’s brand reputation, for example, when compromised customer data makes it into the news.
Threat hunting is an important part of any enterprise security strategy
Threat hunting is a proactive way to find and prevent cyber attacks, as well as discover them more quickly. It can be automated with the right tools and used to find new attacks as they emerge.
Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) can be used in threat hunting. It allows security analysts to identify and investigate potential threats. This cyber security tool works by analysing and correlating large volumes of security event data from various sources.
SIEM can be used to detect suspicious behaviour and identify patterns that may indicate a threat. It can provide contextual information to help analysts understand the scope and severity of a potential threat. By using SIEM for threat hunting, organisations can easily identify and respond to potential security incidents, reducing the likelihood of a successful attack.
Organisations must be ready to identify threats before they become a problem. This can be done by proactively monitoring networks for any anomalies that could indicate malicious activity or breaches, such as unusual spikes in traffic patterns and abnormal server behaviour patterns.
SEACOM Business provides various cyber security services to enterprises and SMEs in South Africa. For more information or to get a quote for our SIEM other cyber security solutions, email us at marketing@seacom.com or leave us a message.
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