The Defender’s Advantage

Cyber security leaders and practitioners alike are learning how to optimize and activate the six critical functions of cyber defense in the multipart virtual series of webinars. It’s time to turn the tide on cyber adversaries with The Defender’s Advantage.

The Defender’s Advantage is the concept that organizations are defending against attacks in their own environment. This provides a fundamental advantage arising from the fact that they have control over the landscape where they will meet their adversaries. Organizations struggle to capitalize on this advantage.

At the same time, the Cyber adversaries leveraging intelligent edges, 5G-enabled devices, and advances in computing power will create a wave of new and advanced threats at unprecedented speed and scale. In addition, threat actors will continue to shift significant resources to target and exploit emerging edge environments, such as remote workers, or even new OT edge environments, rather than just targeting the core network.

This approach involves shifting the focus from simply reacting to cyberattacks to actively seeking out potential vulnerabilities and taking steps to strengthen security measures.

To turn the tide on cyber adversaries, organizations need to adopt a comprehensive cybersecurity strategy that includes the following components:

1. Risk assessment: Conducting regular risk assessments to identify vulnerabilities and potential attack vectors is critical to understanding an organization's cybersecurity posture.

2. Proactive threat hunting: Rather than waiting for attackers to strike, organizations should be actively searching for signs of malicious activity on their networks and systems.

3. Security automation: Automating routine security tasks can free up resources to focus on more complex threats and enable rapid response times.

4. Collaboration: Sharing threat intelligence and collaborating with industry peers and government agencies can help organizations stay ahead of emerging threats.

5. Cybersecurity training and awareness: Ensuring that employees are trained to recognize and report suspicious activity is essential to reducing the risk of successful attacks.

By implementing these strategies, organizations can gain the Defender's Advantage and improve their ability to detect and respond to cyber threats before they cause significant harm. However, it is important to remember that cybersecurity is an ongoing process, and organizations must continually evaluate and update their strategies to stay ahead of evolving threats.

Dr. Deepak Kumar Sahu, President & CEO, VARINDIA