InTegriLogic Blog

Your business’ cybersecurity posture must prioritize detection, evaluation and mitigation of risks posed by your supply chain. It is vital that your security is upgraded on a regular basis to better prepare for any worst-case scenarios.

Having said that, it should come as no surprise that a vulnerable third party that your organization deals with can weaken your supply chain as well. Although controlling a third party’s cybersecurity can be challenging, it must be taken seriously since a security compromise at their end could put your business at risk.

Always remember that no matter how secure you think you are, dealing with an unsecure vendor can severely damage your business’ reputation and financial position.

 

Recommended Security Practices

Prevention is always better than cure, especially when you are managing data, systems, software and networks. By proactively adopting best practices, it is certainly possible to enhance your supply chain’s security. Some of these practices include:

 

• Security Awareness Training: You must educate all employees about how even a minor mistake on their part could severely compromise security. Since employees are usually the first line of defense against cyberattacks, it is important that they are given adequate training to identify and avoid any potential threats. Drafting and implementing an effective security awareness training program should not be a one-time affair. It should take place at regular intervals to ensure all stakeholders are on the same page.
• Data Classification: Data classification enables you to identify data, segment it according to its worth and assign security to each type of data. The bottom line is that if you do not know your data thoroughly — especially the data that rests in your supply chain — you will struggle immensely at securing it.
• Access Control: Enabling an access control gateway lets only verified users access your business data, including users that are part of your supply chain. With robust authentication and authorization protocols in place, you can minimize the chances of sensitive data getting compromised. While authentication verifies whether the user is who they claim to be, authorization verifies whether a user has access to a particular type of data. Hence, both hold equal importance when implementing a robust access control strategy.
• Monitoring: Given the invasive and inevitable nature of security threats, a brisk reaction time is fundamental to the effectiveness of your supply chain security. Hence, automated and consistent monitoring is vital for quick detection and response to an attack. You must gather and dissect relevant data to recognize suspicious activity or dubious system changes within your organization. You can pre-define acceptable behavior on the monitoring system, and if breached, the system will trigger an alert.
• Endpoint Protection: Endpoint protection ensures that end-user gadgets are protected against nefarious cybercriminals. Cybercriminals are getting more adept at identifying the most vulnerable point within your network. In most cases, it turns out to be an end-user device on your network or even devices on your third-party partner’s network. Therefore, securing endpoints is crucial to reinforcing the security of your business and your supply chain.
• Patch Management: Security gaps left wide open due to inept patch management can leave your business vulnerable to cyberattacks. Whenever a new patch gets delivered, it is essential you deploy it immediately. Failing to do so could give cybercriminals a clear passage to circumvent your defenses.
• Routine Scanning: Routine vulnerability scanning is a coordinated process to test, recognize, examine and reveal potential security threats (internal and external). Automating these scans so they are conducted accurately and regularly without investing a lot of time and effort will work wonders.
• Network Segmentation: Once you dissect your business’ network or segment it into smaller units, you can control movement of data between segments and secure each segment from one another. Moreover, automating the process can help you smartly restrict suspicious entities (both internal and external) from gaining access to vital information or data.
• Managed Detection and Response: MDR is an economically feasible service that helps you with in-depth threat detection and response. Threat hunting, which is part of this service, helps you with deep research and analysis of vulnerabilities, thus allowing you to deal strategically with cyberthreats.

 

Adopt These Best Practices Before It’s Too Late

When it comes to supply chain security, the best practices mentioned above are just the tip of the iceberg of what you should do to avoid security incidents. Enlisting the help of an MSP can help you stay ahead of the curve since they have the experience and expertise to shore up your business’ security.

Drop us an email to know more about safeguarding your supply chain from looming cyberthreats.

 
 
 
Article curated and used by permission.

Your business’ cybersecurity posture must prioritize detection, evaluation and mitigation of risks posed by your supply chain. It is vital that your security is upgraded on a regular basis to better prepare for any worst-case scenarios.

Having said that, it should come as no surprise that a vulnerable third party that your organization deals with can weaken your supply chain as well. Although controlling a third party’s cybersecurity can be challenging, it must be taken seriously since a security compromise at their end could put your business at risk.

Always remember that no matter how secure you think you are, dealing with an unsecure vendor can severely damage your business’ reputation and financial position.

 

Recommended Security Practices

Prevention is always better than cure, especially when you are managing data, systems, software and networks. By proactively adopting best practices, it is certainly possible to enhance your supply chain’s security. Some of these practices include:

 

• Security Awareness Training: You must educate all employees about how even a minor mistake on their part could severely compromise security. Since employees are usually the first line of defense against cyberattacks, it is important that they are given adequate training to identify and avoid any potential threats. Drafting and implementing an effective security awareness training program should not be a one-time affair. It should take place at regular intervals to ensure all stakeholders are on the same page.
• Data Classification: Data classification enables you to identify data, segment it according to its worth and assign security to each type of data. The bottom line is that if you do not know your data thoroughly — especially the data that rests in your supply chain — you will struggle immensely at securing it.
• Access Control: Enabling an access control gateway lets only verified users access your business data, including users that are part of your supply chain. With robust authentication and authorization protocols in place, you can minimize the chances of sensitive data getting compromised. While authentication verifies whether the user is who they claim to be, authorization verifies whether a user has access to a particular type of data. Hence, both hold equal importance when implementing a robust access control strategy.
• Monitoring: Given the invasive and inevitable nature of security threats, a brisk reaction time is fundamental to the effectiveness of your supply chain security. Hence, automated and consistent monitoring is vital for quick detection and response to an attack. You must gather and dissect relevant data to recognize suspicious activity or dubious system changes within your organization. You can pre-define acceptable behavior on the monitoring system, and if breached, the system will trigger an alert.
• Endpoint Protection: Endpoint protection ensures that end-user gadgets are protected against nefarious cybercriminals. Cybercriminals are getting more adept at identifying the most vulnerable point within your network. In most cases, it turns out to be an end-user device on your network or even devices on your third-party partner’s network. Therefore, securing endpoints is crucial to reinforcing the security of your business and your supply chain.
• Patch Management: Security gaps left wide open due to inept patch management can leave your business vulnerable to cyberattacks. Whenever a new patch gets delivered, it is essential you deploy it immediately. Failing to do so could give cybercriminals a clear passage to circumvent your defenses.
• Routine Scanning: Routine vulnerability scanning is a coordinated process to test, recognize, examine and reveal potential security threats (internal and external). Automating these scans so they are conducted accurately and regularly without investing a lot of time and effort will work wonders.
• Network Segmentation: Once you dissect your business’ network or segment it into smaller units, you can control movement of data between segments and secure each segment from one another. Moreover, automating the process can help you smartly restrict suspicious entities (both internal and external) from gaining access to vital information or data.
• Managed Detection and Response: MDR is an economically feasible service that helps you with in-depth threat detection and response. Threat hunting, which is part of this service, helps you with deep research and analysis of vulnerabilities, thus allowing you to deal strategically with cyberthreats.

 

Adopt These Best Practices Before It’s Too Late

When it comes to supply chain security, the best practices mentioned above are just the tip of the iceberg of what you should do to avoid security incidents. Enlisting the help of an MSP can help you stay ahead of the curve since they have the experience and expertise to shore up your business’ security.

Drop us an email to know more about safeguarding your supply chain from looming cyberthreats.

      Article curated and used by permission.

Digital transformation has made many things easier for businesses, right from inventory management and order processing to managing financials. On the flip side, however, it has also made companies more vulnerable to cyberattacks and data breaches. A breach occurring anywhere in the supply chain could end up seriously disrupting your operations. So, how do you safeguard your business against these threats?

Deploying a bunch of security solutions within your company is not enough. For starters, it can’t guarantee the prevention of human errors and insider threats, which are major causes of data breaches. Besides that, it doesn’t exactly address the weak links in your supply chain. Global supply chains have grown vast and complex, making it virtually impossible to pinpoint failure points or completely avoid risks.

In other words, it is time to stop considering cybersecurity and data protection as just a technology problem that exists within your organization. The scope is much, much larger. It is also a people, process and knowledge/awareness problem that extends to your entire supply chain. That means your preventive and corrective measures should proactively address risks within your supply chain.

Let's take a look at some key strategies and controls that can help you effectively manage and avoid supply chain risks effectively.

 

Make Supply Chain Security a Part of Governance

Addressing supply chain risks on an ad hoc basis will only create ambiguity and chaos. Instead, you need to make it a part of your security activities and policies. This way, employees will know how to coordinate with third-party organizations and what kind of security activities must be undertaken.

 

Supply chain cybersecurity strategy best practices include:

• Defining who is responsible for holding vendors and suppliers accountable
• Creating a security checklist for vendor and supplier selection
• Specifying how to evaluate and monitor suppliers’ cybersecurity practices and how often
• Setting up a mechanism for measuring performance and progress

 

Take Compliance Seriously

With cyberattacks and data breaches increasing and impacting more people than ever before, the emergence of numerous compliance regulations has come to the forefront. For instance, if you are part of the defense industrial base, you must be Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification (CMMC) compliant. There are many more out there, such as GDPR, HIPAA, PCI DSS, etc., each applicable to a particular industry or specific focus area.

In most cases, to prove and maintain compliance, companies must undergo several detailed assessments, produce different reports and documentation, implement certain best practices and more. You can avoid weak links in your supply chain by making compliance with these regulations mandatory for your vendors.

Besides that, you need to ensure your business remains compliant with laws applicable to you as well. Not only does it strengthen your cybersecurity and data protection posture, but these regulations also act as a guide for everyone on your team to follow. Since these regulations are often updated, it ensures the measures you take align with industry standards.

 

Deploy Comprehensive and Layered Security Systems Internally

Threat prediction is virtually impossible if you have a large number of third-party vendors. The attack surface is massive, making it almost impossible to guard against. What you need is comprehensive and layered security.

It is a more holistic approach, where each layer of your IT infrastructure is protected by a series of different solutions that make up for each other's vulnerabilities. So, even if your firewall fails to defend an attack vector, you still have multiple layers of defense protecting your data, including antivirus, access control, intrusion prevention systems and data encryption.

The layered approach to security also calls for regular training and testing of your employees since they are usually your first line of defense. For instance, if your team knows how to identify a phishing email, your data won't be compromised even if your phishing filter fails.

By not relying on any one solution to protect your sensitive data and files, you disrupt the cyber kill chain. This will allow you to prevent, detect and respond to cybersecurity risks more effectively.

 

Adopt and Enforce International IT and Data Security Standards

Because modern supply chains are so interconnected, you have to interact and collaborate with your vendors constantly. This means vast amounts of data are exchanged, including sensitive customer information such as medical records, PII and financial data. The data must be stored securely (with continuous monitoring and real-time alerting) and access to it must be regulated.

But how do you guarantee this? By adopting and enforcing international IT and data security standards such as GDPR and HIPAA. These standards ensure companies keep track of the sensitive data they acquire, produce it when challenged and have implemented adequate measures to secure the data. Besides that, when selecting a SaaS vendor, you should find out if they are SOC 2 or ISO27001 compliant. This indicates that the vendor is securing information as per industry standards.

 

Wrapping Up

With supply chains becoming more interconnected and smarter, now is the time to identify and secure weak links in your supply chain. Collaborate with your partners, find out potential vulnerabilities and compliance violations, and work together to mitigate those risks.

To find out how to deploy layered security and how you can secure your data while staying compliant with regulations, contact us now.

 
 
 
Article curated and used by permission.
Data Sources:

• https://prolink.insure/the-cybersecurity-stats-you-should-know-in-2020/
• https://www.idwatchdog.com/insider-threats-and-data-breaches/

 

Digital transformation has made many things easier for businesses, right from inventory management and order processing to managing financials. On the flip side, however, it has also made companies more vulnerable to cyberattacks and data breaches. A breach occurring anywhere in the supply chain could end up seriously disrupting your operations. So, how do you safeguard your business against these threats?

Deploying a bunch of security solutions within your company is not enough. For starters, it can’t guarantee the prevention of human errors and insider threats, which are major causes of data breaches. Besides that, it doesn’t exactly address the weak links in your supply chain. Global supply chains have grown vast and complex, making it virtually impossible to pinpoint failure points or completely avoid risks.

In other words, it is time to stop considering cybersecurity and data protection as just a technology problem that exists within your organization. The scope is much, much larger. It is also a people, process and knowledge/awareness problem that extends to your entire supply chain. That means your preventive and corrective measures should proactively address risks within your supply chain.

Let's take a look at some key strategies and controls that can help you effectively manage and avoid supply chain risks effectively.

 

Make Supply Chain Security a Part of Governance

Addressing supply chain risks on an ad hoc basis will only create ambiguity and chaos. Instead, you need to make it a part of your security activities and policies. This way, employees will know how to coordinate with third-party organizations and what kind of security activities must be undertaken.

 

Supply chain cybersecurity strategy best practices include:

• Defining who is responsible for holding vendors and suppliers accountable
• Creating a security checklist for vendor and supplier selection
• Specifying how to evaluate and monitor suppliers’ cybersecurity practices and how often
• Setting up a mechanism for measuring performance and progress

 

Take Compliance Seriously

With cyberattacks and data breaches increasing and impacting more people than ever before, the emergence of numerous compliance regulations has come to the forefront. For instance, if you are part of the defense industrial base, you must be Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification (CMMC) compliant. There are many more out there, such as GDPR, HIPAA, PCI DSS, etc., each applicable to a particular industry or specific focus area.

In most cases, to prove and maintain compliance, companies must undergo several detailed assessments, produce different reports and documentation, implement certain best practices and more. You can avoid weak links in your supply chain by making compliance with these regulations mandatory for your vendors.

Besides that, you need to ensure your business remains compliant with laws applicable to you as well. Not only does it strengthen your cybersecurity and data protection posture, but these regulations also act as a guide for everyone on your team to follow. Since these regulations are often updated, it ensures the measures you take align with industry standards.

 

Deploy Comprehensive and Layered Security Systems Internally

Threat prediction is virtually impossible if you have a large number of third-party vendors. The attack surface is massive, making it almost impossible to guard against. What you need is comprehensive and layered security.

It is a more holistic approach, where each layer of your IT infrastructure is protected by a series of different solutions that make up for each other's vulnerabilities. So, even if your firewall fails to defend an attack vector, you still have multiple layers of defense protecting your data, including antivirus, access control, intrusion prevention systems and data encryption.

The layered approach to security also calls for regular training and testing of your employees since they are usually your first line of defense. For instance, if your team knows how to identify a phishing email, your data won't be compromised even if your phishing filter fails.

By not relying on any one solution to protect your sensitive data and files, you disrupt the cyber kill chain. This will allow you to prevent, detect and respond to cybersecurity risks more effectively.

 

Adopt and Enforce International IT and Data Security Standards

Because modern supply chains are so interconnected, you have to interact and collaborate with your vendors constantly. This means vast amounts of data are exchanged, including sensitive customer information such as medical records, PII and financial data. The data must be stored securely (with continuous monitoring and real-time alerting) and access to it must be regulated.

But how do you guarantee this? By adopting and enforcing international IT and data security standards such as GDPR and HIPAA. These standards ensure companies keep track of the sensitive data they acquire, produce it when challenged and have implemented adequate measures to secure the data. Besides that, when selecting a SaaS vendor, you should find out if they are SOC 2 or ISO27001 compliant. This indicates that the vendor is securing information as per industry standards.

 

Wrapping Up

With supply chains becoming more interconnected and smarter, now is the time to identify and secure weak links in your supply chain. Collaborate with your partners, find out potential vulnerabilities and compliance violations, and work together to mitigate those risks.

To find out how to deploy layered security and how you can secure your data while staying compliant with regulations, contact us now.

      Article curated and used by permission. Data Sources:

• https://prolink.insure/the-cybersecurity-stats-you-should-know-in-2020/
• https://www.idwatchdog.com/insider-threats-and-data-breaches/

 

Insider threats are among the most dangerous cyberthreats out there. Yet, organizations of all sizes seem to be either reluctant or negligent when it comes to fighting them. Over 50 percent of organizations don’t have an Insider Risk Response Plan and 40 percent don’t assess how effectively their technologies mitigate insider threats.¹ Even though 59 percent of IT security leaders expect insider risks to increase in the next two years, very little is being done to prevent them from causing serious security incidents.

With the threat growing bigger by the minute, disaster could strike at any time. If you still aren’t worried, just remember that the average time to identify and contain a data breach is 280 days. This should give you an idea of the possible damage a single data breach could cause to your business.

This brief article will attempt to throw some light on the types of insider threats you must detect and mitigate, the damage they could cause, the user attributes that increase these risks, and the security controls you should implement to prevent and reduce these threats.

 

Understanding Insider Threats

Simply put, an employee or contractor who wittingly or unwittingly uses his/her authorized access to cause harm to your business is considered an insider threat. The Ponemon Institute’s Global Cost of Insider Threats Report 2020 lists three types of insider threats:

• A careless or negligent employee or contractor who unwittingly lets a hacker access your business’ network. Over 60 percent of incidents in 2020 were related to negligence.
• A criminal or malicious insider who abuses his or her privileged access to your business’ network to either steal or exfiltrate sensitive data for financial gain or plain old revenge. Criminal insiders were involved in 23 percent of breaches in 2020.
• A credential thief who poses as an employee or a contractor to gain access to sensitive data and then compromise the data for financial gain. Credential theft led to 14 percent of breaches in 2020.

The Serious Damage Insider Threats Can Cause

Even a single security breach caused by an insider threat can result in serious damage to your business in the following ways:

• Theft of sensitive data: Valuable data such as customer information or trade secrets could be exposed following a breach — an ordeal Marriott International survived in early 2020. Hackers abused a third-party application used by Marriott for providing guest services, to gain access to 5.2 million records of Marriott guests.
• Induced downtime: The downtime following a breach impacts your business in more ways than one. As mentioned earlier, it can take a long time for you to ascertain the details of a breach and then control the damage. This period can drain your business resources like it did to a company in the UK who had to eventually shut shop after a disgruntled employee deleted 5,000 documents from its Dropbox account.
• Destruction of property: A malicious insider could cause damage to physical or digital equipment, systems or applications, or even information assets. A former Cisco employee gained unauthorized access to the company’s cloud infrastructure and deleted 456 virtual machines, jeopardizing the access of 16,000 users of Cisco WebEx. The tech major had to shell out $2.4 million to fix the damage and pay restitution to the affected users.
• Damage to reputation: This is a guaranteed consequence of a security breach. Should you suffer a breach, investors, partners and clients may immediately lose confidence in your business’ ability to protect personal information, trade secrets or other sensitive data.

User Attributes That Aggravate Insider Threats

The likelihood of a security breach caused by an insider could be significantly increased due to:

• Excessive access provided to several users in the form of unnecessary permissions or admin rights
• Haphazard allocation of rights to install or delete hardware, software and users
• Usage of weak login credentials and bad password hygiene practices by the users
• Users that act as a single point of failure since no one keeps their access under check (a phenomenon common with the CEO fraud)

 

Building a Resilient Defense Against Insider Threats

As a business, you can undertake a list of security measures to build a resilient defense against insider threats as part of a proactive defense strategy rather than a reactive one. Some of the immediate measures you can take include:

• Assessment and audit of all systems: Direct your IT team to assess and audit every system, data asset and user in order to identify insider threats and document it thoroughly for further action.
• Restriction of access and permission controls: Not every employee needs to have access to every piece of data. You must review and limit unnecessary user access privileges, permissions and rights.
• Mandatory security awareness training for all users: This measure is non-negotiable. Every user on your network must be trained thoroughly on cyberthreats, especially insider threats, and on how to spot early warning signs exhibited by potential insider threats such as:
  
  • Downloading or accessing substantial amounts of data
• Accessing sensitive data not associated with the employee’s job function or unique behavioral profile
• Raising multiple requests for access to resources not associated with the employee’s job function
  
  • Attempting to bypass security controls and safeguards
• Violating corporate policies repeatedly
• Staying in office during off-hours unnecessarily
• Enforcement of strict password policies and procedures: You must repeatedly encourage all users to follow strict password guidelines and ensure optimal password hygiene.
• Enhancement of user authentication: Deploy enhanced user authentication methods, such as two-factor authentication (2FA) and multi-factor authentication (MFA), to ensure only the right users access the right data securely.
• Determining ‘baseline’ user behavior: Devise and implement a policy to determine ‘baseline’ user behavior related to access and activity, either based on the job function or the user. Do not be counted among the 56 percent of security teams that lack historical context into user behavior.
• Ongoing monitoring to detect anomalies: Put in place a strategy and measures that will identify and detect abnormal/anomalous behaviors or actions based on ‘baseline’ behaviors and parameters.

 
Detecting insider threats and building a robust defense strategy against them can be a tough task for most businesses, irrespective of size. Unfortunately, the longer you wait, the greater the chance of a security lapse costing your business its entire future.

 
However, you certainly shouldn’t hesitate to ask for help. The right MSP partner can help you assess your current security posture, determine potential insider threats to your business, fortify your cybersecurity infrastructure and secure your business-critical data.

 
It may seem like a tedious process, but that’s why we’re here to take all the hassle way and ensure your peace of mind remains intact throughout this fight. All you have to do is shoot us an email and we’ll take it from there.

 
 
 
 
Article curated and used by permission.
 
  
Data Sources:

• Ponemon Data Exposure Report 2021 by Code42
• Ponemon Cost of a Data Breach 2020 Report 2020
• https://www.ekransystem.com/en/blog/real-life-examples-insider-threat-caused-breaches
• https://northyorkshire.police.uk/news/businesswoman-sentenced/
• https://www.ekransystem.com/en/blog/real-life-examples-insider-threat-caused-breaches