A guest writer of WEI, see Bill Frank’s biography and contact information at the end of this article.
Michael Lewis coined the term, Moneyball, in his eponymous book published in 2003 and made into a movie in 2011 starring Brad Pitt. Moneyball was about applying analytics to baseball. Billy Beane, the Oakland Athletics General Manager, was the first baseball executive to use analytics to increase the probability of winning games.
Bad actors are waging increasingly sophisticated and frequent attacks—including ransomware, cyber espionage, zero-day malware and fileless attacks—to exploit endpoint vulnerabilities. These rapid-fire, diverse attacks are generating an average of 11,000 alerts per week that security teams must investigate, triage and address.
See Bill Frank’s biography and contact information at the end of this article.
[Note: This is an updated version of the original article posted on March 21, 2024. I replaced the term "Governance” Controls with “Performance” Controls to eliminate any confusion with the NIST Cybersecurity Framework 2.0 use of the term “Governance.”
I focus here on automated controls that monitor and measure the “performance” of “Defensive” controls that directly block threats or at least alert on suspicious activities.
How well are your cybersecurity controls performing? Measuring control efficacy is challenging. In fact, under-configured, misconfigured, and poorly tuned controls, as well as variances in security processes are the Achilles Heels of cybersecurity programs.
A mismatch between risk reduction potential and performance results in undetected threats (false negatives) as well as an excessive number of false positives. This leads to an increase in the likelihood of loss events.
All controls, whether people, processes, or technologies, can be categorized in one of two ways – Defensive or Performance.
A constant, unwelcome guest in the digital transformation era refuses to leave: ransomware. This digital villain continues to adapt and grow despite years of battle. Although there have been a number of alerts and updates about ransomware, enterprises are still finding it difficult to ward off these threats.
Network security is an essential component of any organization's digital transformation journey. With the increasing complexity of cyber threats, network firewalls are a critical tool for protecting distributed infrastructure from malicious attacks. Security solution services offer organizations the ability to extend and strengthen their overall security efforts from edge to core, allowing them to securely scale their digital business operations. By deploying advanced technologies such as next-generation firewalls (NGFWs) and intrusion prevention systems (IPSs), organizations can protect themselves against a wide range of internal and external threats while maintaining high levels of performance. Read on to learn about Fortinet’s FortiGate NGFWsand why they are considered the best in the business when it comes to providing organizations protection against web-based network threats.
Unfortunately, as technology evolves, it’s not just the enterprise that benefits from the latest and greatest tools – so do the criminals who use them to attack businesses. With enterprises pushing forward with digital-first initiatives, it’s a matter of when, not if, they will be faced with a cybersecurity threat. Because of this assumed risk, it is no longer enough to just have the right technology in place; it’s imperative for your enterprise to have a cybersecurity strategy to prevent, detect, and overcome a ransomware attack.
To stay competitive and fulfill customer needs, today’s enterprises demand unparalleled availability and resiliency in all aspects, including data centers. At the same time, the attack surface is growing ever larger through rapid digital expansion, and cybercriminals are becoming more sophisticated day by day.
The definition of network firewalls has changed. As an increasing number of businesses move toward hybrid networks and begin seeking firewall capabilities in the cloud, cloud vendors are also offering native firewall capabilities to their clients. This year Gartner revised their description of the firewall market to include firewalls with the following features:
Networks continue to grow in both size and complexity. Enterprises need modern security solutions that better protect their network traffic. Many organizations are retiring their traditional firewalls to implement next-generation firewalls (NGFWs). NGFWs are able to inspect traffic at a much deeper and more detailed level than their predecessors. They can also detect hidden threats in encrypted traffic. This capability is especially important as encryption technologies continue to evolve and more and more traffic is encrypted. An NGFW is a vital component of your security arsenal, but not all NGFWs are created equal. An effective firewall provides robust security through a simple management platform while meeting the speed and performance needs of your enterprise.
