Enterprise security monitoring involves strengthening your organization’s cyberdefenses in a holistic and integrated approach. Your cybersecurity strategy should account for varied threats from all potential attack vectors. When crafting a robust program, you have limitless security monitoring tools to choose from. Therefore, and due to the complex nature of security solutions available today, it helps to identify the top enterprise security monitoring tools that will collectively protect your organization against rapidly evolving threats.
Top Enterprise Security Monitoring Tools
An effective security monitoring strategy needs end-to-end cognizance of the varying threats that can compromise network and data security. Organizations have their work cut out for them when evaluating solutions and tools according to their individual merits and integrability—such as an up-to-date threat database, continuous defense assessment, and a proactive incident mitigation and response program.
Within this broader strategy, the top enterprise security monitoring tools your organization needs to implement in preparation for potential cyberattacks include:
- Threat detection and response
- Penetration testing
- Vulnerability assessment and management
Security Threat Detection & Response
In today’s hyper-connected world, malicious agents are circling right outside your foremost line of protection, waiting to pounce at the slightest security slip. As a result, organizations can no longer afford to take a back seat and react frantically to the emergence of a novel threat. Instead, a proactive approach is required to stay on top of ever-dynamic and sophisticated cyberattacks.
This involves detecting possible threats before they ever come near your network. A dedicated team working day in, day out to preemptively identify and eliminate exposure to new and emerging threats is the need of the hour.
What you do after detecting a threat is equally essential to your preemptive processes. A robust incident response plan should be established and well-documented to mitigate any damage caused by a cyberattack. Even if a targeted threat slips through your defenses, it’s possible to minimize the effect of a given incident with the help of a structured response framework.
Some of the elements of a proactive threat detection and response plan are:
- Vulnerability scanning to identify and plug sources of attack
- Performing root cause analysis (RCA) to fix reasons for the breach
- Incident response drills to keep procedures fresh and shore up gaps
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A Managed Services Approach
Organizations currently face skill shortages and a lack of battle-tested personnel to effectively manage threat detection and response. Even with adequately skilled employees, managing an always-on security monitoring team is far from easy. Managed detection and response (MDR) services can offload the heavy lifting from your staff so you can better leverage staff bandwidth.
An MDR partner can bring in stalwarts from the industry who can provide invaluable insights into the intricacies of security monitoring and use their expertise to accelerate the creation of an industry-leading detection and response plan for your organization.
MDR services can even enhance regulatory compliance efforts to ensure your programs and procedures adhere to the latest regulatory frameworks, like HITRUST CSF, applicable to all organizations with general security and compliance needs.
Penetration Testing
Organization networks and defenses are always prone to cyberattacks by hackers hoping to steal confidential and sensitive data. Therefore, it’s imperative that you keep your cybersecurity team and implementations on their toes by conducting regular penetration testing.
Penetration testing is one of the most powerful network security monitoring tools you can have in your arsenal. It involves simulating a cyberattack on your current systems and architecture to unearth vulnerabilities and points of entry that hackers could exploit. It’s another preemptive strategy to discover flaws in your existing security setup before they prove to be fatal.
Organizations can utilize penetration testing to identify misconfigured security protocols and even prioritize which security vulnerabilities to focus on. Penetration testing extends well beyond assessing your network security—you can put your hardware, web applications, cloud environment, and mobile devices through their paces to ensure no potential breach is left unchecked.
NIST CSF and CMMC Compliance
The National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST) lays out detailed guidelines for penetration testing in its NIST Cybersecurity Framework (CSF). You can also partner with a cybersecurity vendor for end-to-end penetration testing services, including assessment focusing on compliance requirements.
Organizations can obtain a ‘preferred contractor’ status by complying with the NIST CSF to gain a competitive edge in the market.
For DoD contractors, in particular, the Cybersecurity Model Maturity Certification (CMMC) framework has superseded all other NIST frameworks and guidance, incorporating all of NIST SP 800-171 and adding various additional security controls as well.
RSI Security is already certified by the CMMC Accreditation Body (CMMC-AB) as a Registered Provider Organization (RPO), capable of guiding framework implementations, and has recently received approval as a Certified Third Party Assessor Organization (C3PAO), capable of conducting official certification processes.
Vulnerability Management
Ensuring total enterprise security requires proactive threat detection and penetration testing, yes, but that’s not enough. You also need to be aware of the threat exposure of your entire asset inventory. Then, you must take steps to implement controls and procedures that minimize the risk of potential cyberattacks.
Enterprise security monitoring is a continuous exercise that gets better in an interactive manner. Your policies, practices, controls, and procedures mature with time. The more robust and effective your strategies are, the faster you’ll be able to materialize a robust vulnerability management plan.
Keeping your vulnerability management plan up-to-date requires that your organizational assets are always current with the latest security patches. This will minimize the risk of new cyberattack methods infiltrating your defenses.
Managed Vulnerability Management
Developing an effective asset management and patch management plan requires intensive bandwidth due to the always-on nature of these activities. Add to that the security of Internet of Things (IoT) devices, continuous vulnerability assessment scans, and comprehensive threat lifecycle management, and you’re looking at full-time capacity for an entire team.
Partnering with a vulnerability management services provider is a logical and beneficial decision for many organizations, especially if you’re in a growth phase and requires all hands on deck for business-critical tasks. Moreover, outsourcing vulnerability management often proves to be more efficient and provides expert cybersecurity and threat intelligence than in-house efforts.
Other Enterprise Security Monitoring Tools
Though threat detection, penetration testing, and vulnerability management represent some of the most critical tools for monitoring enterprise security, there are a few others that you can incorporate into your overall cybersecurity program. When partnering with a managed security services provider (MSSP), these offerings comprise outsourcing solutions within a holistic suite of potential services your organization can implement. The result is reclaiming significant bandwidth and guaranteeing expert responsibility and task execution.
Additional enterprise security monitoring tools provided by MSSPs include:
- Endpoint Management – Endpoints refer to all the devices remotely connected to your organization’s networks. Endpoint security is necessary to secure these devices from cyberattacks as they regularly access organization files, web apps, and other resources.
- Infrastructure Security – Your IT infrastructure comprising servers and data centers also needs to be secured against physical and network threats. Infrastructure management ensures that all necessary enterprise cybersecurity components have been implemented, operate smoothly, and remain integrated or become replaced over time.
- Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) – SIEM is a functionality that’s almost a necessity for an organization, big or small. SIEM essentially provides you visibility over all your digital assets and systems, monitoring and analyzing all events concerning them to identify suspicious or outright malicious activity.
- Content Filtering – Content/DNS filtering refers to the implementation of a security filter over your organization’s network that prevents access to malicious websites and traffic. Content filtering can protect your employees from social engineering (e.g., phishing, baiting) scams, unsecure websites, and other cyberattacks attempting to bypass your defenses.
Ensure Robust Enterprise Security
Managing multiple enterprise security monitoring tools is daunting. RSI Security is a leading managed security services provider that acts as your full-service partner—offering comprehensive threat detection & management, penetration testing, and regulatory compliance advisory, among many other functionalities.
Reach out to us today and find out how we can help you succeed in your cybersecurity journey.