Protect Against 85% of Cyberattacks

Editor's Notes

• #3: Much of what you do in cyber security is an 80/20 effort. You can get 80 percent of what you need by implementing 20 percent of the framework. As you try to nail down the remaining 20 percent of risk and exposure, you begin spending a lot more time, effort, and money. The CIS framework is built much the same way. The top 5 controls—25 percent of the framework—deliver layers of defense that, when implemented effectively, can mitigate about 85 percent of cyber threats. 1. Inventory and Control of Hardware Assets Actively manage (inventory, track, and correct) all hardware devices on the network so that only authorized devices are given access, and unauthorized and unmanaged devices are found and prevented from gaining access. 2. Inventory and Control of Software Assets As above, but for software: Actively manage (inventory, track, and correct) all software on the network so that only authorized software is installed and can execute, and that unauthorized and unmanaged software is found and prevented from installation or execution. 3. Continuous Vulnerability Management Continuously acquire, assess, and take action on new information in order to identify vulnerabilities, remediate, and minimize the window of opportunity for attackers. 4. Controlled Use of Administrative Privileges The misuse of administrative privileges is a primary method for attackers to spread inside a target enterprise. Provide processes and tools to track/control/prevent/correct the use, assignment, and configuration of administrative privileges on computers, networks, and applications. 5. Secure Configuration for Hardware and Software Establish, implement, and actively manage (track, report on, correct) the security configuration of laptops, servers, and workstations using a rigorous configuration management and change control process in order to prevent attackers from exploiting vulnerable services and settings. (As delivered by manufacturers and resellers, the default configurations for operating systems and applications are normally geared to ease-of-deployment and ease-of-use—not security. )
• #4: *Australia Signals Directorate (equivalent to US NSA)
• #14: We talked about asset management a moment ago. Let’s take a look at how we’re bringing together Security with some of our other solutions now. Endpoint management plus security: Patch management and vulnerability management often overlap with typical operational activities. Integrate patch management with your endpoint management solution to make it easy for one team to manage both activities. If a security incident occurs, do you have the right tools in place to respond? Can you isolate an infected system? Re-provision a system that was ransomed or couldn’t be cleaned? Apply configuration changes to resolve security vulnerabilities? Service management plus security: There is a process for every task in every IT operation. Patching is no exception. You need to track everything from the change to the entire monthly maintenance incident, and even security incidents other sources report that drive the need for a software update. How are you managing updates each month? You are tracking changes in your CMDB but how are you executing the updates? Security incidents often start as a normal incident and escalate to a security issue once identified as such. Resolving these incidents often leads to a configuration change, a patch for a software vulnerability, or a change in policy for privileges or application/device control capabilities. When you identify a security incident, do you have the means to respond to and remediate it directly? Finally, since you have no real defense without up-to-the-minute insight into your environment, our products also come with standard with Ivanti Xtraction. Xtraction takes advanced reporting to a whole new level, turning it into a checkbox with the ability to bring together data collected by our solutions and many more from across the organization and easily customize dashboards and reports. Get the right data into the hands of executives, directors, and line-of-business (LOB) and application owners. Pre-built connectors for nearly every tool you use (service desks, monitoring and ITAM toolsets, phone systems, etc.) mean no coding, business intelligence gurus, or spreadsheets—and no data silos. And Xtraction can be customized to connect to even more, so everyone can view their data enterprise-wide in context—cutting through the mass of information to the critical insights that matter—to make smarter, faster decisions with ease.