Follow These Steps For Preventing Cyber Attacks

During this pandemic, we have seen a rise in remote working and its increased security risks. Many companies started to realize that the current system of safeguarding corporate networks is not working effectively. That is the main reason why the IT security teams of most companies are choosing an active approach to improve their cybersecurity.

The Shield Framework that is introduced by The MITRE Corporation clearly states that only active defense is critical in overcoming or defending today’s cyber threats. Most of the reputable companies use the latest strategies and recommendations for placing themselves in a stronger and safer position.

Active Defense Is Essential

Over a decade of engagement with cyber attackers, an active defense knowledge base has been developed known as Shield. MITRE is utilizing this active defense knowledge base to gather and organize what it has been learning about adversary engagement and active defense. The information that MITRE gathered ranges from high-level, CISO-ready considerations of opportunities and objectives to more practitioner-focused conversations of the tactics, techniques, and procedures that defenders can easily use. This new framework encourages discussion on how to use active defense and what the security teams need to know about it.

What Is Active Defense?

Active defense covers a wide range of activities, such as basic cyber defense capabilities, engaging the adversary, and cyber deception. That means the cybersecurity teams can take limited offensive actions and counterattacks to prevent any digital assets to be taken by the adversary. When these activities are taken together, IT teams are able to stop cyberattacks and get more insight into the attackers. This will help them prepare well for the next attack.

According to MITRE, deception capabilities are very essential for the modern security stack for deterring and managing adversaries. Deception is the most prominent among the nine active defense tactics developed by Shield. The other defense tactics are channel, collect, contain, detect, disrupt, facilitate, legitimize, and test.

More About Deception

The enterprise networks are targeted by hackers all the time and they are looking to create chaos and steal some PII which they can exploit. According to analysts, critical breaches to enterprise networks have increased by three to six times in the past few years.

When you are considering a security strategy for your company, you need to know about active defense and more importantly, you need to understand what deception is. An existing misconception is that deception is identical to honeypots that have been around for a long time. Honeypots are no longer effective, and most security teams are not using them. A lot of management is required to make honeypots realistic. When the attackers engage with a honeypot, detecting that it is not a real system will be almost impossible for the attackers. Therefore, they will know that they are in the middle of getting caught.

In reality, deception technology and honeypots are completely different. Deception technology has evolved significantly over the years. Today, deception technology involves a deceptive artifact approach that will lead the attackers on a false trail and alert the defenders. This will help them find and stop the attackers. Only some unauthorized users know about the existence of deception because they don’t usually have any effect on everyday systems. This will significantly reduce false positives. One important thing is that having deception technology increases the financial value of the IT security organization.

One problem is that some organizations have a wrong perception that deception is very complex and yields very little ROI. Deception technology is very beneficial for security organizations because it is low-cost maintenance and also lightweight. However, some organizations are hesitant to use them because they believe that it is a complex and overwhelming approach which only provides little value. With the help of technologies like AI and automation, the complexity of deception can be eliminated easily.

It is wrong for organizations to think of deception from a technology standpoint. In fact, deception should be thought about from a use case standpoint. One of the fundamental elements of every security program is deception. Every company these days need better cyber threat detection capabilities.

Building A Stronger Defense

The tactics and tools of cybercriminals are changing continuously these days. That means the defenders also have to keep updating their tactics and tools to prevent the attack. As cybercriminals have realized remote working has exposed the weakness in cybersecurity of most companies, safeguarding the networks and servers has become a tougher job than ever.

Many companies around that world were pushing to rapid digital transformation last year. This has created a lot of security gaps that can be exploited by cybercriminals. The COVID-19 pandemic only highlighted the importance of a better approach for securing critical assets. Active defense is a major part of that approach.