The unfortunate truth about incident preparedness?
Incidents are always a matter of when, not if. Even if you think you have everything covered.
Today’s threat actors are sophisticated, advanced, and likely already know your organization’s weak spots. No matter how prepared your orgs are when they battle, critical hits will land and your systems may be compromised.
Will your organization stay standing long enough to counterattack? Or is it going to completely crumble if something goes wrong?
Only time and an experienced cyber expert (you) will tell.
Ultimately, how you respond to a crisis is how you will be measured, not by all the previous threats you blocked and thwarted. Proactive security posture is your best defense against the approximate 600 million cyberattacks per day, and the ultimate key to creating a culture of cyber resilience in your organization.
Below, we’re going on an epic quest to explore how IR consultants can empower execs with the knowledge they need to embrace proactive incident preparedness and cybersecurity resilience.
Let’s get into it!
Most organizations aren't treating cybersecurity as a multi-dimensional discipline. Instead of pouring into security culture, proactive approaches, and 360-degree visibility, most are investing heavily into sky-high firewalls and sophisticated detection systems...which is a strong start, but it begs the question: What do you do when these things break?
The post-crisis critical hits are often where businesses either recover or die...permanently.
It's no one's fault that the focus is askew, especially as the industry has been long overdue for a mindset shift. But we'll be the first to tell you: It's time to move from this protect-and-detect obsession to true cyber resilience—which means accepting that your defenses will be breached and focusing on what happens next.
There is an upfront cost to creating proactive systems, of course, but the ROI is clear: Organizations with faster incident response capabilities see a 34% reduction in breach costs, per data from IBM.
Before we dig into what the true pillars and focuses of cyberresilience vs. cybersecurity are, we have to first define the differences between the two concepts.
Typically, cybersecurity asks: “How do we stop every attack?” whereas cyber resilience asks, “How do we quickly resume operations in the wake of an inevitable attack?”
Other key differences are outlined below:
Cybersecurity
Cyber Resilience
Building a cyber-resilient organization comes down to six core pillars:
This is typically where most orgs start and end, thinking they’re covered because “there’s an IR plan in SharePoint…somewhere.” Unfortunately, having a plan and remaining prepared are two entirely different things.
Consultants can help orgs break through this self-imposed barrier by focusing on in-crisis role knowledge, collaboration exercises, and a focus on exercising IR skills more than once a year. The more you practice (using tools like TTX), the more your teams will be able to jump into a real incident and start containing it faster.
As a result of ongoing practice, teams will also be able to recognize real incidents faster because they'll be in the practice of recognizing security issues that could turn into full-blown incidents.
Here’s where everyone’s favorite endpoint protection strategies, access controls, and defense tools come in. The goal? Keep the bad guys out, and the good guys protected. Simple enough.
The problem, though, is that stopping at this pillar keeps an organization from the development of a cyber resilience framework. Your protective measures aren’t impenetrable. They never will be. They only provide time and visibility for your org to react when attacks happen.
IR consultants who put this dichotomy into words for their stakeholders instantly gain leverage for additional preparedness exercises and a greater allowance for IR work—which means better outcomes for you, as a provider, and for everyone involved.
Detection is usually where the magic happens, and it requires both a technical and human touch. Your systems are designed to catch compromises and breaches, but your humans are often the first to detect that something “isn’t right.”
When building out this area of the cybersecurity and IR strategy, cast a wide net that catches issues at the earliest possible point of development—think tools like network monitoring, endpoint detection, and user behavior analytics. Security awareness training is also a helpful way to support your team in recognizing stuff like social engineering attempts.
Don’t underestimate the importance of this pillar. Orgs and providers can’t respond to what they can’t see. And they certainly can’t plan to bounce back from hidden vulnerabilities very well, either.
Pillar 4 is where cyber resilience truly shines and differentiates itself from its counterpart, cybersecurity. Response requires your entire org’s support, and should include escalation procedures, communication rules, decision-making frameworks and specific resources that are allocated to the days and months following an attack.
Additionally, this pillar should be a core point of focus for IR consultants, especially during live opportunities to refine and polish responses (like a TTX).
Looking for ways to take your upcoming resilience exercise to the next level? We’ve got you covered.
Recovery is where you find out if your cybersecurity resilience efforts were worth the investment.
Can you restore operations quickly? Can you maintain customer trust? Can you demonstrate to regulators that you handled the incident appropriately?
If you want to help your organization answer YES to all three of these questions as a provider, you need to create a cyber resilience strategy that includes both technical restoration and "softer" areas of recovery, like reputation management, regulatory compliance upkeep, continuity, and communication.
There should also be an after-action process that helps organizations get back to better, rather than their original state. Every incident is an opportunity to improve and strengthen your organization's resilience.
The last pillar to consider focuses on continuous education and organizational awareness.
What went wrong? What went right? How do we improve? This after-action process helps organizations get back to "better," rather than their original state.
Every incident is an opportunity to improve and strengthen your organization's resilience, and treating them as such mitigates the risk of the next proactively—starting today.
IR consultants: Your organization will face a cyber incident. You know that, but your stakeholders might not. That's why cyber resilience strategies have to shift the question from "if" to "when," continuing the conversation around what, exactly, to do about it.
Ready to make tabletop exercises that build resilience across your organization?
Asa, powered by Ally, is your tool to success as you lead the cyber resilience charge with the organizations you serve. Have Asa join and listen in on your exercises—then, walk away with a customizable TTX report just minutes later.
It’s time to tick off your admin tasks and get back on the battlefield. Try Ally (for free) today and experience the difference for yourself!
About Ally Security
Ally is here to support facilitators, which in turn creates a virtuous cycle where exercises take less time, provide more value, are run more frequently, and can make every organization can be better prepared.
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