Cyber Resilience

What is Cyber Resilience?

Cyber resilience is an organization’s ability to prepare for, respond to, and recover from cyber-attacks or incidents while maintaining the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of their systems and data. It encompasses a comprehensive approach that combines proactive measures, incident response plans, and continuous monitoring to mitigate risks and minimize the impact of cyber threats.

Why is Cyber Resilience Important?

As cyber-attacks grow more sophisticated and the interconnectivity of devices and networks expands, organizations across all sectors and sizes face heightened risks. A single breach can have far-reaching consequences, from financial losses to reputational harm and regulatory penalties. Implementing a robust cyber resilience strategy is important for several reasons:

• Protection against cyber threats: Cyber resilience helps organizations withstand and recover from cyber-attacks, including malware, ransomware, and phishing, reducing the impact of these threats on operations and data security.
• Business continuity: By ensuring systems and data can quickly recover from cyber incidents, organizations can maintain operations and minimize downtime, which is crucial for revenue generation and customer trust.
• Regulatory compliance: Many industries have strict regulations regarding data protection and cybersecurity. Being cyber resilient helps organizations comply with these regulations and avoid fines or legal issues.
• Maintaining reputation: A cyber incident can damage an organization’s reputation, leading to loss of customers and revenue. Cyber resilience helps protect against these risks, preserving the organization’s brand and customer trust.
• Protecting sensitive data: Cyber resilience helps safeguard sensitive information, such as customer data and intellectual property, reducing the risk of data breaches and the associated costs and reputational damage.
• Adapting to evolving threats: Cyber threats are constantly evolving, and being cyber resilient means being able to adapt and respond effectively to new and emerging threats, ensuring ongoing protection.

What is a Cyber Resilience Framework?

A cyber resilience framework is a structured approach or set of guidelines that organizations can use to enhance their ability to withstand and recover from cyber threats. These frameworks typically include best practices, standards, and processes for assessing, building, and maintaining cyber resilience.

Cyber resilience frameworks often incorporate elements of cybersecurity, risk management, business continuity, and incident response. They provide organizations with a comprehensive framework for addressing cyber threats, including prevention, detection, response, and recovery.

Some common cyber resilience frameworks include the NIST Cybersecurity Framework, ISA 99/IEC 62443, and the Cyber Resilience Review (CRR) from the Department of Homeland Security. These frameworks provide organizations with a structured approach to improving their cyber resilience and reducing their overall cyber risk.

How Does a Cyber Resilience Framework Work?

Cyber resilience works by implementing a comprehensive framework that incorporates multiple layers to fortify an organization’s defenses, drawing on best practices from MITRE and NIST. Here’s how it typically operates:

1. Anticipate: Organizations regularly identify internal and external vulnerabilities and prioritize their most valuable assets. This requires collaboration between IT and Security teams to establish an end-to-end approach that connects systems, processes, and policies.
2. Withstand: A plan is put in place to monitor for unusual activity that could indicate a malicious activity or breach. This includes using security tools like Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) and Threat Detection and Response. Organizations also employ Zero Trust Principles and enforce Identity and Access Management (IAM) policies like Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA).
3. Recover: Backup is a critical component of cyber resilience. Organizations ensure that their restore points are clean, immutable, and verified, allowing for a quick recovery and minimal disruption to business operations.
4. Adapt: Organizations continually evaluate their processes, policies, and systems to prevent repeated and evolving internal and external threats. This adaptability is crucial for staying ahead of cyber threats and maintaining a strong cyber resilience posture.

What are the Challenges of Cyber Resilience?

Implementing cyber resilience strategies in today’s digital landscape poses several challenges. Effectively managing cyber resilience is complex, as it necessitates understanding and addressing a broad array of interconnected systems, processes, and technologies. This complexity can be overwhelming for organizations with limited cybersecurity resources or expertise.

Another significant challenge is the rapidly evolving threat landscape. Coupled with resource constraints such as budget, expertise, and technology, it can be difficult for organizations to stay abreast and adapt their defenses accordingly.

Additional challenges include:

• Rapidly evolving technology and infrastructure
• Lack of standardized frameworks and guidelines
• Complexity of emerging technologies like IoT and cloud computing
• Insider threats and employee negligence
• Geopolitical and regulatory changes
• Limited cyber threat intelligence
• Organizational silos and lack of collaboration

How Forescout Can Help

In today’s ever-evolving threat landscape, cyber resilience is of critical importance. Forescout offers cutting-edge cyber resilience solutions that empower organizations to proactively defend against cyber-attacks and minimize the impact of potential breaches.

Forescout’s cyber resilience solutions provide comprehensive visibility, control, and orchestration across all network-connected devices. This ensures that organizations can effectively manage their security posture and stay ahead of cybercriminals.

Choosing Forescout products brings a range of benefits that enhance overall cyber resilience:

• Real-time device visibility: Gain agentless visibility into all IP-connected devices, instantly classifying them and assessing their compliance and risk upon network connection. This feature provides passive profiling for sensitive systems, continuous monitoring for situational awareness, and a real-time inventory of all devices across your enterprise without disrupting critical processes.
• Automated policy enforcement: Enforce and automate Zero Trust policies for least-privilege access for all managed and unmanaged devices across your extended enterprise, including IT, OT, IoT, and IoMT devices. Apply policy-based controls to enforce device compliance, proactively reduce your attack surface, and rapidly respond to incidents. Automate compliance assessment and initiate remediation workflows to ensure compliance with internal security policies, external standards, and industry regulations.
• Network segmentation: Simplify dynamic segmentation for all cyber assets to minimize attack surface and regulatory risk. Streamline segmentation across your enterprise for compliance, visualizing real-time traffic and unifying policies. Quickly create new zones and groups, isolate insecure traffic, and implement Zero Trust principles confidently. Simulate policy changes to assess impacts and reduce operational complexities and costs with simplified policy development.

Schedule a demo to experience how Forescout continuously discovers, assesses, and governs all your cyber assets, including IT, IoT, OT/ICS, and IoMT, from campus to cloud to data center to edge.