Page 55 - Cyber Defense eMagazine July 2024

significant gaps in their organization's defenses due to underspending. Considering these findings, the
urgency for effective cyber defense strategies becomes undeniable. IT teams must learn to maximize the
impact of limited resources while strengthening defenses against an ever-evolving range of cyber threats.

Layering Cyber Solutions Can Help Enhance Protections While Keeping Costs Down

To address these challenges, IT teams must adopt a strategic approach to cybersecurity investments. A
layered defense strategy, integrating multiple interoperable services, offers a manageable solution to
enhance security posture while remaining budget conscious. By implementing a layered defense
strategy, organizations can effectively address the shortcomings highlighted by budgeting gaps while
maximizing the efficiency of their investment.

As cyber leaders begin to create a layered defense strategy for their organizations, they must prioritize
these key considerations:

• Enabling Depth and Breadth of Protection: Layered cybersecurity offers both defense in depth
and comprehensive protection. By deploying multiple security layers, organizations create
overlapping defenses against various threats, ensuring a robust security posture. This approach
minimizes the likelihood of successful cyber-attacks by covering multiple attack vectors and
provides a stronger overall defense strategy.
• Improved Detection, Response, and Resilience: Layered integrations enhance threat
detection capabilities, facilitate rapid incident response, and bolster resilience against
sophisticated attacks by diversifying defense measures. Furthermore, embedding different layers
of solutions can provide insight into potential threats at various stages of an attack lifecycle. When
this insight is shared across vendors in the cyber stack, organizations can improve their detection
capabilities and mitigate threats before they fully infiltrate a system.
• Scalability and Adaptability: As new threats emerge, cyber leaders must adapt and implement
new layers or make adjustments to existing layers. Flexible solutions help IT teams keep up with
evolving organizational needs and shifting threat vectors, to ensure that defenses are always
effective against whatever threats come their way.
• Strategic Prioritization: In a layered cybersecurity defense strategy, it's critical to use resources
strategically by aligning defense strategy with organizational goals, and deploying the right
resources to ensure the company’s most vulnerable areas are prioritized. This involves identifying
which specific areas could pose the biggest threat and focusing on protecting those areas. For
example, organizations can provide targeted training for employees based on individual risk
profiles. This proactive approach helps lower the likelihood of cyberattacks and limits damage to
the organization's assets and reputation.

Cyber Defense eMagazine – July 2024 Edition 55
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