What Is Threat Mitigation in Cybersecurity?

The world has experienced a continuing growth of online activity as our on a regular basis technology has evolved. But this growth rate accelerated in 2020 on account of the pandemic – forcing people online to take care of personal and business activities within the face of physical lockdowns. An unlucky side effect of this increased online activity was a corresponding increase in cyberattacks targeted at the brand new wave of digital dependents with little understanding of threat mitigation and the safety risks they faced.

Since then, the spike in common security threats like malicious emails, ransomware attacks, and vulnerability exploits on critical IT infrastructure continues to rise. It has grow to be clear that almost all organizations are unprepared to reply to a cyberattack.

Newer technologies like cryptocurrencies, the Web of Things (IoT), and Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning (AI/ML) are approaching widespread adoption, expanding the scope of security risks to contend with. Among the finest ways firms can defend themselves on this latest, fast-paced environment is by getting educated on mitigate threats to their digital infrastructure. 

Cybersecurity threat mitigation (sometimes known simply as threat mitigation) is the gathering of strategies, tools, and workflows organizations use to attenuate or eliminate digital threats to mission-critical company data or their networks. The general process breaks down into three distinct stages:

1. Prevention — This stage of security mitigation focuses on identifying and improving an organization’s current security weaknesses. Prevention strategies are a more proactive approach, versus reacting to threats after they’ve already occurred. 
2. Detection — Detection focuses on identifying cyber threats as quickly as possible before they could cause significant system damage. Detection is simply a part of the safety risk mitigation process. It have to be used together with other mitigation strategies to make sure threats aren’t only identified but handled as swiftly as possible. 
3. Remediation — That is the response stage of threat mitigation and typically involves isolating, repairing, or resolving cyber threats before they will adversely impact digital infrastructure or data.

Cybercriminals are consistently evolving the strategies they use to infiltrate company networks. Implementing proper threat mitigation procedures means that you can stay ahead of the curve, identifying and remediating cyber threats before they cause irreparable damage to what you are promoting. 

It’s vital to notice that pretty much as good as your cybersecurity might be, no network is 100% protected. On the subject of businesses experiencing cyberattacks, it’s not a matter of if. It’s a matter of when. Proper threat mitigation protocols will enable you to quickly discover and remediate any threats that slip through the cracks and reduce their risk to your infrastructure. 

A part of thorough cybersecurity threat mitigation is education. Quickly identifying and resolving cyberattacks requires knowing the preferred attack methods today’s digital threat actors employ. Below are some attacks you and your organization should concentrate on. 

Malware attacks are downloadable or executable files that install malicious software on the topic computer. Hackers use this software to realize access to your organization’s network. Once inside, they will access various varieties of sensitive company data like login credentials, financial information, and proprietary information.

These cyber threats typically come as a file attachment or suspicious link. It’s vital to present your team training on identifying these files and the correct procedure for handling them.

Phishing attacks are cyber threats that come via email. A hacker may send an email posing as an authority figure, government agency, or other trusted source. These digital threat actors are superb at making their emails look real. By utilizing this deception, they will trick end users inside your organization into forfeiting sensitive information. Phishing attacks give cybercriminals access to login credentials, user data, and even bank card numbers.  

Data is one of the helpful assets any business owns. If it falls into the mistaken hands, digital threat actors could cause severe damage to an organization’s repute in addition to astronomical financial damages.

Modern devices and businesses thrive on connectivity. The Web of Things (IoT) ensures easy data access across devices. That increased access requires larger, more intricate networks. Because of this, there’s more opportunity for data to be leaked or hackers to infiltrate. 

Denial-of-service attacks are when hackers flood a network with traffic until the system crashes. Once the network crashes, actual users are denied access to the data or services the corporate normally provides. Ultimately, this causes severe reputational and financial damage.

Ransomware involves a hacker infiltrating the network after which holding the organization hostage, denying access to their critical files. The cybercriminal sets a ransom that they need to receive to permit the corporate access again. 

The infectious file is normally encrypted, making it nearly inconceivable for organizations to remove it manually. Once the hacker gets their ransom, they supply the decryption key to remove the file. 

In light of the evolving threat landscape, listed here are 10 steps that ought to be a component of your security risk mitigation strategy for keeping your organization secure:

Perform a cybersecurity risk assessment to discover the threats your organization faces, how likely they’re to occur, and how much damage they could cause. The danger assessment results will determine your organization’s readiness to reply to security events and uncover your infrastructure’s vulnerabilities to common attacks like phishing, malware, brute-force attacks, and ransomware.  

1. Scoping — Determine whether the assessment should encompass your entire infrastructure or just a few vital systems.
2. Identification — Discover all digital and physical assets and the possible threats to every asset.
3. Evaluation — Analyze each threat to find out the likelihood of occurrence and the impact in your organization.
4. Evaluation — Using the outcomes of your evaluation, select the most effective plan of action for every risk. You possibly can either avoid, transfer, or mitigate risk.
5. Documentation —Create a risk register to document all identified risks and their cybersecurity risk mitigation steps, and review it recurrently to update the contents.

An incident response (IR) plan is a documented set of tools and directions put together to assist your team quickly discover, take care of, and recuperate from cybersecurity threats. As an illustration, if a security breach occurs, an efficient IR plan ensures you may have the correct people, processes, and technologies to resolve the problem and minimize damage. An IR plan is particularly useful in protecting against data breaches, ransomware, denial-of-service attacks, malware, and other attacks designed to compromise a system’s operation.

1. Discover the critical systems — Discover essentially the most critical systems to what you are promoting operations.
2. Discover potential risks — Discover the threats and risks to your critical systems.
3. Develop procedures for handling risks — Develop cybersecurity risk mitigation strategies for these identified risks.
4. Define roles and responsibilities for the incident response (IR) team — Define specific roles for all IR team members around your incident response plan activities.
5. Arrange and train IR team members — Inform and train respective team members of their role’s requirements.
6. Establish communications guidelines — Establish protocols for relaying information between IR team members, other staff, and external stakeholders.
7. Test, review, and improve — Usually test your incident response plan and refine it based on the outcomes.

A study by Tessian has shown that human error is answerable for 85% of information breaches which have occurred. The very best strategy to reduce the likelihood of your team becoming a security risk is to coach them recurrently. This training should include not only your cybersecurity or IT staff but all team members, as any of them can grow to be a weak point in your operations. You possibly can mitigate security threats from social engineering attacks, reminiscent of phishing and scam emails, when properly trained.

Easy methods to mitigate security risk: Listed here are a couple of key points to contemplate when implementing a security awareness training program in your team:

• Include cybersecurity in onboarding — Include cybersecurity training in your onboarding process for brand spanking new team members.
• Regular training for workers — Require all staff to attend refresher training programs recurrently.
• Effective training content — The content of your training program should raise awareness on discover and reply to the safety threats your organization faces.
• Live-fire drills — Engage employees in live-fire drills to practice the talents they learn.
• Management buy-in — Get the buy-in of management-level staff to extend adoption.
• Update curriculum — Continuously update your learning curriculum to incorporate latest threats and cybersecurity risk mitigation strategies for these threats.

Poor network security can result in all types of nightmare scenarios, so mitigating security threats in your network should involve consistently monitoring your network traffic for intrusion attempts. This monitoring applies to each outbound and inbound traffic, because it’s possible for rogue employees to leak sensitive information from inside your network. With properly configured firewalls and threat intelligence systems, you may proactively detect malware, Denial-of-Service attacks, botnets, and man-in-the-middle attacks, stopping them before they do any damage.

Easy methods to mitigate security risk: Ensure your network features a firewall configured only to permit traffic needed in your operations. Allow only administrators to have access to this firewall, and you should definitely enable logging of all network and administrative activity on it. Pair your firewall with a VPN to encrypt connections between distant locations.

Passwords are used to substantiate identity and control access to restricted resources or information. Subsequently, the stronger your password systems are, the lower your risk of unauthorized access to sensitive data from weak or stolen credentials, man-in-the-middle attacks, phishing emails, and brute-force attacks.

Easy methods to mitigate security risk: Introduce a strong password policy requiring minimum password length and complexity for all accounts and two-factor authentication where possible. Your password policy also needs to include scheduled password changes and account lockouts after repeated login failures. As well as, introduce using password managers to stop people from storing passwords insecurely.

The vendors answerable for operating systems, antiviruses, and other widely used software consistently release product updates. Whether or not they add latest features or mitigate security threats, these updates are essential to the continued use of those applications. Installing these updates can protect you from newly discovered viruses, malware, and third-party vulnerabilities.

Easy methods to mitigate security risk: Automate the updates for antivirus and malware programs to make sure they receive their definitions on time. As well as, schedule critical security patches for operating systems to put in when available. Finally, for more sensitive systems, you should definitely run updates on test instances before deploying them to your live environment. 

Backups are critical to making sure business continuity after a crisis. Encryption adds one other layer of security in your backups, protecting your sensitive information from unauthorized access. With these cybersecurity risk mitigation strategies in place, you may easily prevent data loss from ransomware attacks, data breaches, or human error.

Easy methods to mitigate security risk: Include the next encryption and backup best practices in your plan :

• Distant storage — Use distant storage in your backups.
• Backup frequency — Schedule backups to occur continuously.
• Data retention schedule — Create a schedule for data retention to administer how long you retain your backup files.
• RAID for data storage — Store your backups in RAID arrays for improved performance and redundancy. Nevertheless, RAID arrays shouldn’t be used as a primary backup solution.
• Multiple backups — Use multiple backup solutions for improved backup recovery options during a disaster.

For organizations that host their IT infrastructure, the safety of those physical hosting locations is just as vital as their digital security. By improving your physical security as a part of your cybersecurity risk mitigation strategy, you may reduce the chance of social engineering attacks, physical theft, and disgruntled employees seeking to cause chaos.

Easy methods to mitigate security risk: Just a few steps to reinforce physical security include:

• Restrict permissions and log activity — Restrict server access to only administrators and log all server activity.
• Use security cameras and doors — Install cameras and security doors in locations that handle sensitive information.
• Disable physical ports — Disable physical ports on servers and stop unsecured devices from accessing your network.
• Equipment security training — Train your staff to be security-conscious with their equipment, including devices that fall under a bring your personal device policy.
• Stolen/missing device policy — Establish procedures for disabling stolen/missing devices.

Likelihood is your organization uses some services or products from an external vendor for its operations. Subsequently, the safety posture of those organizations can impact your organization’s cybersecurity readiness, especially if their services play a critical role in your operations. Third-party vulnerabilities are a typical attack vector for hackers who goal popular software systems.

Easy methods to mitigate security risk: To scale back your exposure to those sorts of attacks, it’s best to set a minimum standard for security that vendors must meet and monitor for compliance. Also, ensure that they meet the legal regulations in your industry before you proceed. Finally, all the time have backups of your data and redundancy plans in case of a system failure on their end.

Regulatory agencies for various industries understand the vital role cybersecurity plays in helping their sectors thrive in today’s world. That’s the reason they implement strict compliance with their information security regulations for his or her stakeholders. example is the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS), which provides cybersecurity risk mitigation strategies to stop bank card fraud and unauthorized access to sensitive data.

Easy methods to mitigate security risk: Discover the cybersecurity regulations required in your industry and review the compliance requirements to see what steps it’s best to take to achieve full compliance. Pay attention to any actions involving external auditors’ validation to substantiate compliance. 

The steps outlined above are an amazing place to begin for constructing your threat mitigation infrastructure. Nevertheless, if you ought to stay ahead of latest and emerging threats from malicious actors, your cybersecurity risk mitigation strategies have to be adaptable. 

With a long time of experience constructing and hosting secure infrastructure, Liquid Web can provide the infrastructure and security expertise that reduces your exposure to old and latest cybersecurity threats.