Page 161 - Cyber Defense eMagazine December 2023

Since the early 1990s, organizations have utilized standard cybersecurity processes like periodic
vulnerability scanning as part of their defense strategies. Despite how established they are, these
processes cannot offer 100% protection when used intensively. For example, daily vulnerability scans
can take up to 23 hours of exposure, providing threat actors with more than enough time to exploit these
weak spots.

This challenge is exacerbated by an organization's composition and established procedures. The team
assigned to incorporate exposures as a component of their deployment strategy is often the same team
assigned to mitigate them, which may cause setbacks in response times. For example, if a security team
documents a problem after 24 hours, the configuration associated with that issue has already been
utilized. Repairing it poses severe risks to the environment's resilience, potentially affecting corporate
activities. Because of this, operations teams may give precedence to other activities, leaving a
vulnerability unaddressed for an extended period.

The remedy for this ongoing issue is to mesh security and operations teams through real-time exposure
detection.

Real-time exposure detection entails constantly evaluating exposure levels without depending on
intermittent scans. Each modification in the environment is promptly analyzed to identify exposure levels.

Organizations can achieve the most success with real-time exposure detection by adopting the following
best practices:

1. Align with Organizational Requirements: Every organization has its own distinct needs, including
its level of tolerable exposure. Security teams must implement parameters that cater to these
specific needs, including pinpointing critical assets, analyzing risks in data flows, and mitigating
threats internally.
2. Encourage Operations To Be More Security-Minded: Operation teams must be well-informed of
exposure levels for several reasons. First, operations teams can examine deployments before
introducing security gaps, therefore shielding systems from exposures before they can occur.
Second, instant exposure detection, when deployed, facilitates safe reversion because it gives
the operations team sole reliance on the configurations and allows for speedy remediation.
3. Adopt Automated Fixes: For best results, security and operations teams should agree regarding
the guardrails they establish to provide automated responses when specific incidents occur.
These rules are cultivated and outlined to generate efficient automated solutions.

Real-time exposure detection is vital in giving cybersecurity teams an advantage over cyber criminals. It
provides organizations with the ability to respond quickly, work together effectively and bolster cloud
environments, developing a more secure digital landscape for everyone. When time is of the essence,
real-time exposure detection is critical to being in control of cybersecurity.

Cyber Defense eMagazine – December 2023 Edition 161
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