Four signs your security strategy is accelerating the business

Manny Rivelo at Forcepoint explains how organisations can review the effectiveness of their cyber security strategy

 

The internet can be scary because it was “designed without security in mind.” Today, the digital world is crawling with hackers stealing customer data to make money; ransomware has practically doubled; and enterprises spend months and $2.4 million on average to find and recover from every breach.

 

In these times of rising business risk and uncertainty, strong security measures like zero trust can be a major business asset, and a competitive differentiator.

 

In a zero-trust world, the first rule is trust no one and verify everything. Yet, it’s hard to know if the implementation of your business’ security strategy is effective when there are so many choices to sift through.

 

Businesses should evaluate the strength of cyber-solutions by their ability to deliver value, not by viruses blocked or endpoints scanned. Achieving these four signs will show your security investment is delivering a competitive advantage to your enterprise.

 

1. Empower people to be more productive

The most important business challenge security can solve today is to keep individuals working efficiently and keep business data safe. That’s easier said than done when people, apps and data are everywhere. Certain controls and policies can be restrictive, which leads to complaints and lack of productivity.

 

Most of the talk around zero trust is about verifying someone’s identity, but we should do more than authenticate access; we need to control the use of that data in a risk-adaptive manner. This “data-first” approach to zero trust frees employees to work from anywhere and from any device, empowering them to be more productive.

 

2. Make business more efficient

Besides increasing productivity, security should be efficient. Amidst a looming recession, executives are asking security teams to tighten their belts and do more with less. In response, vendors need to simplify the infrastructure, and not overcomplicate the consumption of security services, by allowing buyers to combine multiple products into one and expand when necessary.

 

Expanding use cases should be as simple as adding more family profiles to Netflix. Streamlining security administration this way requires fewer people and helps teams thrive even with upheavals in talent.

 

3. Reduce risk

You already have numerous technology widgets, so adding more to the security stack just gives you more things to manage. Uncomplicating security and delivering strong enforcement increases overall efficacy and reduces risk.

 

Security should close gaps and just work where it needs to: discovering, classifying and protecting sensitive data in lots of places, including cloud apps, the web, on-premises networks, email and roaming endpoints.

 

4. Streamline compliance

Risk mitigation includes simplifying compliance with privacy laws around the world. International authorities can create new rules to protect consumers or adjust existing mandates like GDPR, HIPAA or PCI. Automated policy controls help teams keep up with changing global regulations and stay ahead of violations.

 

A step-by-step process

Implementing zero-trust security is a step-by-step process. It won’t happen overnight, but you can take pragmatic steps to help generate fast payoffs. This includes:

 

• Reviewing your environment. Identify the areas of your business that need protection and security. Include the capabilities and talent you already have and the gaps you need to fill.
• Deciding on the right timing. Align zero-trust migrations with service contracts or operational and infrastructure consolidation.
• Putting data at the centre. With the rise of data breaches, an emerging board mandate is to provide continuous control over how people access and use data. Know where your data is and who is accessing it.
• Shortening the time to value with risk-adaptive data intelligence. You can’t afford latency. Feed insights to your security platform, such as indicators of risky user behaviours or visibility on access to your data assets, to automate enforcement and remediation. You can also show how security works throughout your organisation as a visualisation of ROI.
• Embracing convergence from “best of breed” to “best of platforms.” The adoption of simplified security architectures is the fastest way to achieve zero trust. This includes integrating essentials like web security, Remote Browser Isolation (RBI), Data Loss Prevention (DLP), Cloud Access Security Broker (CASB), SD-WAN and many more modern solutions so they are all working together.
• Distributing enforcement. Make sure the security platform validates identity, grants access, protects data, stops threats and takes other actions at the endpoint, network and/or cloud – not just in a data centre located miles away. Moving security closer to the user is a huge flex for risk reduction, performance and user experience.
• Unifying management and analytics. It’s too risky and costly to manage multiple tools. Bring all policies and insights into one place to configure, adjust and manage for the entire organisation.

 

If the conversation around zero trust seems noisy, it’s because of the number of similar answers that vendors offer today. Depending on the viewing angle, it could be challenging to distinguish between just another point product and an actual solution. But your business depends on the effectiveness of your security strategy to survive.

 

By ensuring security enhances individual and IT productivity, improves business efficiency, reduces risk and simplifies compliance, you’re taking critical first steps to accelerate your business.

 

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Manny Rivelo is CEO of Forcepoint

 

Main image courtesy of iStockPhoto.com