Security Operations Management Done Right

A recent Dark Reading post stated that 56 percent of large companies handle 1000+ security alerts each day. The author further notes that the volume of security alerts has doubled in the past five years, according to 70 percent of IT security professionals. Such an appalling number of security alerts results in a no-win situation for security teams currently grappling with a worsening cybersecurity skill shortage. Seventy percent of cybersecurity professionals claim that their organization is impacted by the cybersecurity skills shortage, according to ESG and the Information Systems Security Association research data. So, how can security operations management be done right amidst these challenges? 

With the current increase in cyberattacks frequency and sophistication, adequate security is an essential aspect of every organization. Enterprises must operate successful programs to achieve optimal protective goals. Fortunately, proper security operations management gives organizations a better security posture to keep a tight leash against intruders.  

What is Security Operations Management?  

EC-Council, an organization that offers cybersecurity certification and training, writes that security management integrates various automation tools with human analysts to monitor and detect threats efficiently. Integrating automation solutions and security analysts is where the potential of security operations management glistens. 

The right set of tools, processes, and expertise provides visibility and automation needed to detect vulnerable applications, non-compliant hardware, and anomalous processes. Besides, the set of tools trigger automated responses for rapid incident response. 

How can you handle security operations management competently? These are the components of effective security operations management. 

• Automatic IT Infrastructure Discovery: since you cannot protect what you cannot see, automatic discovery helps you discover any IT resources in a hybrid IT environment. You get a grip and stay in control of evolving IT infrastructure by deploying auto-discovery tools in your security operations.
• IT Asset Visibility: proper security management process should provide 24/7 security monitoring and management in systems, networks, and endpoints 
• Enforce Security Policies: don’t bristle at the notion, ‘we don’t need a policy. That is not how we do things here.’ Develop and implement clear and comprehensive security policies or rules to regulate the access and use of your systems and information 
• Proactive Threat Hunting: today, organizations are running the risk of attacks by passively being vigilant. Proper security management should feature automated workflows to detect potential threats and relay findings in a centralized system. Proactive threat hunting provides security teams with reliable and comprehensive details about potential threats before hackers exploit them. 
• Comprehensive Insider Risk Management: a recent study shows that 61 percent of organizations have experienced at least one insider attack over the last year, with 22 percent saying they have reported at least six separate attacks over the same period. An article on TechRepublic highlights that insider threats can originate from different sources, including angry or careless employees, ex-employees with unrevoked access, or other stakeholders with access to company systems and data. While keeping a close eye on external threats, organizations must also leverage automation and the visibility of internal threats. Organizations can implement proper security operations management by investing in an automated system that can identify insider threats before they can cause damage. The solution should disable user accounts and remediate incidents automatically. Besides, it should automate phishing assessments to spot and combat future attacks. 
• Security Incident Management and Response: security operations management should provide alerts for non-compliant activities. Security management should feature a standardized and repeatable process to help an organization handle incidents and improve its cybersecurity posture over time.  
• Cybersecurity integration – Siloed approaches and point technical protection technologies cannot counter frequent and complex scenarios that enterprises face today. Security tools should integrate with other applications and service management systems for complete protection 
• Security Governance Support: security management should enhance governance by establishing ways to assure that security tools and policies are aligned with company objectives and consistent with necessary laws and regulations like GDPR, HIPAA, NIST, PCI DSS.   

Partnering with a Security Operations Management Service Provider 

Security operations management does not have to be complicated. Proper tools and expertise can perform the tasks needed to keep you aware of your business’s security risks. Proper security operations management also keeps organizations within compliance guidelines through enhanced information security governance.  

As security attacks become more frequent and sophisticated, there is a sudden strain on IT teams and security budgets, impending proper security operations management for many organizations. Fortunately, managed security solutions provide capabilities and experience to help businesses meet their security operations and governance requirements. 

This is where Cynergy comes into the picture. 

See the Invisible and Dominate the Uncontrollable 

Managing the alarming number of security threats manually is a challenge, especially in a field that braves issues like skills shortage and frequent, sophisticated cyber incidents. The volume of security alerts will undoubtedly keep rising as organizations endorse various technologies in their digital transformation journeys. How then can you achieve the security visibility needed to mitigate attacks amidst these shortcomings?  

Small and medium enterprises can leverage Cynergy’s solution – a strategic risk-driven platform for lean cybersecurity teams managing multiple product lines to support secure, agile development at scale. 

With the Cynergy platform, organizations can streamline how they handle security operations, including asset discovery, security alerts, and incident response, into one cyber resilience and posture management solution. 

Some of Cynergy’s platform features that complement your security operations management efforts include:

• Comprehensive asset discovery in zero time – Continuously identify all assets associated with your organization and can be identified from the web, publicly exposed cloud interfaces, subdomains, websites, and employee leaked data. Cynergy provides a single, hybrid view of your IT resources and interdependencies, anywhere, any time. 
• Building strategy and risk assessment – Cynergy verifies that new deployments are vulnerable-free by exploiting them. The solution spots and highlights the vulnerabilities that need attention 
• Prioritize and act based on your vulnerabilities – based on the identified exploitable vulnerabilities, we build a prioritized action plan that can be acted upon directly from the Cynergy platform. 
• Security Governance Support – based on an actual due diligence self-testing, Cynergy helps customers fill all their documentation gaps to ensure they have all required policies available, roles and responsibilities set, and company security plans clarified.
• Continuous Red Teaming – continuously test your websites, mobile applications, cloud and other infrastructure for vulnerabilities and misconfigurations using advanced automated scanners and prioritize your security efforts based on risk and attack trends 
• Rapid Integration – Cynergy solution integrates with other services and application management solutions with cybersecurity controls. For instance, the platform offers ticketing integration to platforms like Jira and Slack. 

As already indicated, maintaining competent security operations management requires more than automation solutions. The arduous task also demands experienced human analysts to monitor and detect frequent and complex threats. Cynergy takes pride in its world’s best minds in offensive and defensive security research. Customers can connect with the world’s leading vetted cybersecurity professionals, CISOs, security architects, penetration testers, incident responders, and other experts to scale and augment the security operations management team.