The 3 Cybersecurity Controls Every Organization Needs to Lower Risk

The cybersecurity controls used to manage an organization’s cybersecurity program in previous years will not work against bad actors targeting networks today. Organizations rely more on cloud computing technology, connecting their sensitive data to more third party networks and in turn expanding their attack surface. 

Bad actors are also getting smarter; using psychologically motivating phishing scams to get employees to download compromised links; running ransomware attacks taking advantage of COVID-19 unemployment claims; and even utilizing hidden backdoor attack methods to infiltrate a remarkable amount of organizations without being noticed. 

Implementing the right cybersecurity controls can better protect your organization from hackers, and might not involve the major increase in budget or resources that you are probably anticipating. 

What are Cybersecurity Controls?

Cybersecurity controls are the processes your organization has in place to protect from dangerous network vulnerabilities and data hacks. The cybersecurity controls organizations use are meant to detect and manage the threats to network data. There will always be new threats and vulnerabilities as technology evolves, but controls are set in place to reduce the overall threat of exposure.

Cybersecurity controls can be physical protection techniques, like requiring a certain badge level to access the data storing center, or using darkened or blurred windows so outside individuals can’t try to see employee desktops. The most important and impactful cybersecurity controls nowadays aren’t the guard’s monitoring physical data, but the measures in place to protect your online data. 

The 3 Most Effective Types of Cybersecurity Controls

There are a lot of recommendations out there for the best cybersecurity controls to protect your network’s most sensitive data. We have made it more manageable by splitting it into three types of cybersecurity controls to focus your efforts on:

1. People

Having the right cybersecurity team that works together towards a common goal is a crucial first type of cybersecurity control to establish in your organization. A team with clearly defined roles will be prepared to take on unexpected threats to their network without a hard hit to business operations. Your organization’s team is the backbone of your security performance management because it is the team members who are responsible for acting on vulnerabilities plaguing your systems, interpreting data, and making the right decisions to best prevent data breaches. 

The people aspect of cybersecurity controls includes gaining executive buy-in from your board of directors and company c-suite. Without an understanding of the state of the company’s cybersecurity program, or how investments in cybersecurity are performing and competing with competitors, company executives won’t be motivated to invest in cybersecurity enough to establish effective cybersecurity controls. 

Bitsight’s customizable reports present the status of your cybersecurity program to reflect program performance and how you compare to competitors. Bitsight reports can enable your security team to successfully present to company leaders, but also can break down areas of risk at the tactical level so that your security team can make important decisions based on real data.

2. Technology

After you’ve established the right team, it’s important to ensure that they’re utilizing the right tools. When it comes to cyber security risks and controls, automated tools and technology will best enable your team to protect your network, especially as businesses are rapidly expanding to include more subsidiaries, onboarding more vendors, and in turn exponentially increasing their attack surface. 

• Continuous monitoring - It’s not enough to evaluate your network’s security risks during cyber security auditing periods, or when a data breach occurs. Using continuous monitoring technology will provide consistent visibility into the true state of your network. With a continuous monitoring software, like the cybersecurity control technology offered by Bitsight, security teams will immediately be aware of new threats within their attack surface to be able to act quickly and protect their organization. 
   
• Enable vendor access - A pain point for cybersecurity teams managing the risk from their vendors is successfully working with their vendors when risks do arise. Bitsight aims to provide a cybersecurity control to target this pain point, and in turn remediate potential threats more quickly to better protect your network. With Enable Vendor Access (EVA) technology, Bitsight customers can grant a third party access to see their Bitsight Security Rating directly in the Bitsight portal. With EVA’s, customers and third parties can work together with the same knowledge and understanding of the network threat. 
   
• Attack surface analytics - For a deeper look into which network risks are the most dangerous, or to flag hidden vulnerable spots including shadow IT, it’s important to have a technological cybersecurity control that summarizes your network risk. Bitsight’s Attack Surface Analytics offering summarizes areas of risk within your program to promote action towards remediation.

3. Data

The last cybersecurity control that is important when defending against cybersecurity threats is the data your team relies on. As already mentioned, building out the right team that works cohesively, as well as engaging with effective tools and technology are two cybersecurity controls that are important to have. Your efforts with other cybersecurity controls might be rendered useless if the data your team relies on isn’t accurate or useful in identifying cybersecurity risks.

Bitsight data is trusted by customers around the world to deliver the accurate and actionable status of risk across their cybersecurity program. Bitsight data is independently verified to correlate with an organization’s likelihood to experience a data breach, so customers can trust that their rating, as well as the ratings of their vendors and partners will accurately reflect risk. Bitsight data also gives customers an accurate picture of how their cybersecurity risks can impact them financially with our Financial Quantification offering. 

Having data your organization can trust not only better protects your network, but saves you time and money that could be spent remediating risks that don’t really exist or aren’t as dangerous as others on your network.

Discover how Bitsight data can be an impactful cybersecurity control for your organization.

How to Choose the Right Cybersecurity Controls

One of the greatest challenges for security teams is knowing which cybersecurity controls to implement. Following several critical cybersecurity best practices can help to ensure you deploy the best mix of physical, operational, and management controls.

Know what you’re protecting

The first priority for any security leader is to understand the data they’re required to protect. Knowing which data is most valuable, where it exists, and who has access to it can help to determine the information security controls required to protect it.

Prioritize controls based on data sensitivity

Security managers must strictly prioritize efforts to maximize the effectiveness of constrained or shrinking security budgets. Ranking sensitive data, like employee or customer financial or personal information, as high priority can help to decide where to focus efforts and resources first.

Engage senior executives and the board

Boards and senior leadership are increasingly taking a more active role in oversight of cybersecurity and establishment of cybersecurity standards. Success of any cybersecurity program – and the controls required to support it – will depend in part on receiving buy-in and budget from senior leadership. Superior reporting capabilities can facilitate this effort immensely.

Know your environment

Deciding which policies, products, and cybersecurity controls will best serve your needs requires a thorough understanding of your IT environment. Complete visibility into your attack surface and digital ecosystem is critical – including what cloud services, shadow IT, and vendor networks are connected to your data, as well as where remote/home network connections are present.

Engage the workforce

Employees are one of the weakest links in your cybersecurity efforts. Understanding their needs and behavior, and providing the proper cybersecurity training and required actions in their contracts are great cybersecurity controls to require to help protect against human error and shadow IT.

How Do You Know Which Cybersecurity Controls are Effective?

Measuring the effectiveness of security controls requires tools like Bitsight Security Ratings. Bitsight analyzes vast amounts of data to identify security issues arising from compromised systems, lack of security diligence, user behavior, and data breaches. By continuously monitoring security posture and performance, organizations can measure the effectiveness of their cybersecurity controls, refining their efforts or implementing new controls when necessary.