3 Keys to Advanced Threat Protection

Every IT security professional and their Chief Information Security Officer, understands Advanced Threat Protection is a key competent to a successful security infrastructure. Constant Advanced Threat Protection research and vigilance is needed to stay on top of the latest threats and technological advancements presented by the current wave of sophisticated cybercriminals. So, who can you trust when the hacker community seems to constantly get the upper hand with more creative ways to inject malicious code into what was thought to be “protected” networks?

Are you disconnected?

Simply adding new technology to your security infrastructure is not the best approach. One of the biggest issues is that most security leaders have tried to adopt technologies but create security gaps along the way that were bigger than what was in place initially, mostly due to staff limitations.  Robert Lemos put it this way in a recent Dark Reading article:

“The shortage of skilled cybersecurity workers has been a common theme over the past decade and continues to affect businesses. While a variety of organizations — from manufacturers to municipalities and from financial institutions to small businesses — are facing significant damages from attacks, almost three-quarters of organizations have a shortage in cybersecurity workers, according to a survey published in May by the Information Systems Security Associations (ISSA).”

The Power of 3 in Advanced Threat Protection Leads to Success

Let’s discuss the three components of a comprehensive, effective solution.  According to a Data Guardian article titled “What is Advanced Threat Protection?” by Nate Lord the components to a comprehensive solution are:

1. “Real-time Visibility: Malicious code and cyber criminals never seem to sleep, so an always-on approach to monitoring and action is required. The challenge here is how much time and cost can you afford for this level of coverage.
2. Context: Required to set prioritization and develop an effective response strategy.
3. Data Awareness: Understanding the difference between valid data and malicious code is the most significant challenge.”

Mr. Lord also goes on to recommend that all Advanced Threat Protection solutions address three key areas:

1. “Halting attacks in progress or mitigating threats before they breach systems
2. Disrupting activity in progress or countering actions that have already occurred as a result of a breach.
3. Interrupting the lifecycle of the attack to ensure that the threat is unable to progress or proceed.”

3 Keys to the Ideal Advanced Threat Protection Solution

In order to combat the new-age cybercriminals, your Advanced Threat Protection solution should have a real-time evasion-proof cyberprotection solution that protects against advanced cyber-attacks, zero-day threats and malware before they impact your organization. Ideally that solution should allow you to:

1. Prevent, Don’t Remediate: Strengthen your cyber defenses dramatically by preventing attacks before they enter and harm your organization, your customers and your brand. Remediation is costly, prevention is not.
2. Detect the Undetected: Identify any malicious or hidden code within incoming data files whether on your network or in a cloud. What you don’t know or cannot see can harm you.
3. Avoid the Firedrill: Proactively and radically improve the agility of your cybersecurity. Finally, you can detect and protect against unknown ("zero-day”) risks, so at last you can take the panic out of cybersecurity.