Security Posture And Risk Management: Fill & Download for Free

As a start, try and get certified in ISO 27001:2013. This certification enables your organization to have a basic cyber security posture and covers a variety of domains- namely risk management, awareness, asset management, documentation, business continuity, etc.After that, you can undergo maturity assessments to further improve your cybersecurity posture. Depending on your product, you can also go for specialized information security certifications to ensure security (like PCI-DSS if you deal with card information).

Cloud security posture management is a category of software solutions to manage and secure cloud infrastructure and also ensure compliance.These solutions are fast becoming mission-critical because cloud infrastructure is dynamic, fluid and complex, which makes it much harder to secure. Compounding the issue: Traditional security tools are not able to address the posture and security of the cloud, in particular, configuration and compliance. Second, there is a gap between DevOps teams and Security teams, creating a greater risk for vulnerabilities to occur and go unnoticed. If something is misconfigured- even a single setting-it can introduce a significant security risk.Application and infrastructure misconfiguration has become a key vulnerability for organizations. It may be due to an application development team misconfiguring a cloud application or a SaaS application that has been incorrectly set up, leaving the apps vulnerable to attacks and exploits.CSPM solutions help in the following areas:Discovery of cloud assets and inventory across multiple clouds. - this is important as shadow IT and M&A activity can introduce vast amounts of “unknown” infrastructureThe ability to assess configurations using industry best practices. There are many such policies available such as CIS, NIST, ISO and regulatory policies such as PCI. Last, there are now vendor-specific config policies such as Microsoft 365.Identify misconfiguration and report and or alert on “gaps”. Allowing security teams to improve the posture of the cloud and get it into a known good state.Detect changes in real-time. Any changes may be authorized, and thus acceptable, or unauthorized. Unauthorized changes can be malicious, or a well-intentioned person doing something they shouldn’t. Nonetheless, any/all changes need to be detected, as they introduce risk and cause configuration drift from a know, good state, or posture.Report and remediate on configuration and compliance scores and remediate issues. Remediation can be automated (this saves time, but not everyone trusts an application to make changes) or can be recommendations. Remediation guidance consists of steps that can be taken to fix a security or compliance issue.There are multiple vendors in the CSPM category. Ones I like are:Zscaler - Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM)| Products | ZscalerOpsCompass - OpsCompass - Your Cloud Operations GuideAqua Security - CSPM Cloud Security Posture Management | Aqua SecurityI believe that all 3 are full-functioned solutions and are worth checking out.

Believe it or not, the best answer is, “yes.”. It's like the song “Love and Marriage.”. Ultimately, you can't have one without the other.Not all threats are relavent to your security posture. However, all of your vulnerabilities are yours to deal with.All vulnerabilities are not equal. Some vulnerabilities, if exploited, would cause your business to fail. Other exploited vulnerabilities would barely be noticed other than minor inconveniences. That is why risk management exists.I am not saying that you should not be aware of the threats. I think that you are a aware of that based on your question. However, you have to know your vulnerabilities to even begin to understand your security posture. Also, knowing vulnerabilities and threats helps to understand your place in the “cyber kill chain.”A comprehensive vulnerability assessment should be a part of your security plan. You have to know where you stand administratively, operationally, technically and securely.Once you complete your vulnerability assessment, then your RMF Process will make sense. After implementing the selected controls, then a penetration test makes sense for testing the controls. After the system is authorized, then you go into the maintenance phase and continue assessing vulnerabilities.Remember, to measure risk requires threats, assets, and vulnerabilities.