Security Strategy: No One Size Fits Approach

The number of cyber attacks on companies is increasing alarmingly. Every company is affected, and the trend is rising. It is not uncommon for such attacks on corporate systems to be successful. Organizations must protect the entire infrastructure and close all susceptibilities, while attackers only need a single loophole to penetrate the systems. No standardized countermeasures, but a sophisticated security strategy helps companies to ward off cyber attacks.

“Courage to leave gaps” is not an option here. A complete tailor-made security strategy drives success by minimizing the attack surface for attackers and quickly identifying successful cyberattacks to reduce impact.

Cyber ​​protection – why there is no one-size-fits-all solution

When it comes to cybersecurity, there is no one-size-fits-all solution that works for all businesses. Because IT systems, the structure of organizations, and corporate cultures are as different as the cyber security initiatives must be, i.e., coordinated with the respective infrastructures, among other things, become.

Even when security teams struggle with limited resources, security initiatives can succeed. But only if the specific attack surfaces, operating models, and the individual risk tolerance of the company and their requirement profile are considered.

Developing and implementing an effective security strategy requires considering the specific IT landscape and its integration and interactions between suppliers, partners, employees, processes, and technologies.

The human factor in the security strategy: what to do?

In developing an effective security strategy, the technical circumstances must be considered, and the “human factor” must be included. It is rarely the case that employees willingly sell or publish sensitive data and exploit vulnerabilities. Much more often, this happens out of ignorance or carelessness.

Therefore, promoting security awareness in companies is essential. Employees need to be aware that cyber-attacks come in many forms and forms: hacker attacks, social engineering, phishing attempts, and malware infections, to name just a few.

A study shows that around 40 percent of companies made contact attempts in the past year to tempt employees to hand over passwords or business-critical data. Security awareness initiatives are needed to sensitize employees to typical attacks. Their successful implementation depends mainly on their acceptance among employees.

Training should be based on appealing content that delivers the best possible user experience and includes high-quality, regular learning units. If security awareness is promoted in companies in this way, the human factor as a source of error can be significantly reduced.

Higher budgets and more security tools don’t mean lower risk.

Unfortunately, a widespread misconception is that more tools and ever-higher budgets automatically mean more security. However, it is much more important that security monitoring occurs around the clock to enable quick response and that measures are targeted and strategically interlinked.

The use of isolated solutions does not lead to the desired goal. It is also essential to ensure that the keys used are correctly configured and that updates and patches are continuously carried out to eliminate system weaknesses and close newly created security gaps.

Shortage of skilled workers and lack of resources:

The best intentions in security strategy are only successful if you have the professionals to execute them. This is also shown by a 2022 study in which 84 percent of companies need help to meet their recruitment targets for new IT security specialists.

These take over, among other things, managed detection and response as well as managed risk tasks and thus strengthen the internal IT resources in protecting the IT infrastructure.

Conclusion: IT security is not optional but mandatory!

The endangerment of the IT infrastructure of companies takes many forms, the threat situation is intensifying, and the ongoing shortage of skilled workers does not make things any easier. But even with a broad IT team, it is a Sisyphean task to protect the entire IT infrastructure against any attack.

Attackers, on the other hand – as mentioned at the beginning – only have to identify a gateway and are typically successful. That’s why companies’ comprehensive cyber protection and security culture is not “friendly to have ” but a must!

If their resources are limited, companies can confidently turn to security experts who will take over cyber protection. Using a security operations center as a service model is also possible. In this way, the systems are comprehensively protected.