Attackers are constantly trying new ways to force their way into stealing your most prized possession: your organization’s data. Many years ago, attackers’ main approach was focused on infecting files or your organization’s apps. It then evolved to injecting malicious code to entire systems. Now you have to worry about protecting your entire organization!
With constant evolution of threats, cybersecurity champions must constantly evolve how we detect threats as well to stay one step ahead of cyber criminals. From tracking suspicious file changes, hashes, using signatures to detect early threats to keeping an eye on early indicators to help stay off sophisticated cyber attacks.
Attackers nowadays use a more lateral approach. Popular methods include:
- Gathering information on their target and mounting a sophisticated, targeted attack later
- Lock down servers and demand ransoms
- Move from one enterprise to another once breaching the first
- Disrupt services by overloading resources
- Overtake legitimate resources and trick authentic users into using malicious software
- ..and a lot more
We can’t sit back and wait for something to happen. Our approach must evolve along with the attackers. Newer, sophisticated threats include multi point attempts at gaining unauthorized access and we must embrace technologies and methods now available to be able to connect the dots and have one view of multiple threats.
XDR (Extended Detection and Response) is generating quite the buzz these days. It enables ways to detect and respond to threats against your organization. The goal of using XDR technologies is to monitor the different channels, whether it be within or external, and help you connect them into an individual occurrence. It’s important that all of your systems and resources work together and use the correct data and tools to allow you to corroborate a detected threat and respond.
It sounds easy enough, right? It can be a bit overwhelming at first to change your point of view on your threat detection capabilities. Each of your organization’s end points most likely has their own security approach. Your on premise SIEM system for example might be different to your company’s cloud setup. Things might seem as if they are totally independent.
In comes XDR. Now, with “new” technology comes a lot of confusion and chaos. Vendors are quickly re-branding technologies they already offer as XDR. An all-in-one solution to monitoring the multiple end points to your organization’s data and apps. And it’s true, for the most part.
The point is to collect all of your data into a single screen so you can visually see the relationships between your individual “stand alone” systems. When you can accomplish this, you can identify malicious activity across your organization, isolate incidents from your different security systems in place and analyze and group them into a single incident.
Evolving the way we detect threats allows us to see our organization from a “bigger picture” and forces us to learn how each of our systems are related. It allows us to understand the strengths and weaknesses of how our organization is connected and it allows us to shut down the attacker’s ability to move laterally within our organization if they gain access through one of your many channels.
Is your organization viewing the bigger picture? JTD Partners can help. Contact us for more information on how we can help your organization’s threat detection evolve.