Every successful organization relies on the strength of its organizational structure. A detailed business plan, efficient employees, and the business experience of key personnel are all critical. A formidable team is built from the consistency and commitment of all of the above, and implementing a strong cybersecurity architecture is no exception.
This is how important it is to have your organization’s cybersecurity architecture airtight in order to protect your organization against external threats. Cyber-threats and cybersecurity breaches come in various forms and continually evolve. Hence, it is pertinent that an organization like yours is highly security alert and familiar with measures and strategies to militate against possible threats.
Without strong security, your organization is vulnerable to a number of threats. Read on to learn about the purpose of cybersecurity architecture.
What is Cybersecurity Architecture?
Cybersecurity architecture, also known as “network security architecture”, is a framework that specifies the organizational structure, standards, policies and functional behavior of a computer network, including both security and network features. Cybersecurity architecture is also the manner in which various components of your cyber or computer system are organized, synced and integrated.
A cybersecurity architecture framework is one component of a system’s overall architecture. It’s designed and built to provide guidance during the design of an entire product/system.
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Security architecture helps to position security controls and breach countermeasures and how they relate to the overall systems framework of your company. The main purpose of these controls is to maintain your critical system’s quality attributes such as confidentiality, integrity and availability. It’s also the synergy between hardware and software knowledge with programming proficiency, research skills and policy development.
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A security architect is an individual who anticipates potential cyber-threats and is quick to design structures and systems to preempt them. Most organizations are exposed to cybersecurity threats but a cybersecurity architecture plan helps you to implement and monitor your company’s network security systems. A cybersecurity architecture framework positions all your security controls against any form of malicious actors and how they relate to your overall systems architecture.
Various elements of cybersecurity strategies like firewalls, antivirus programs and intrusion detection systems play a huge role in protecting your organization against external threats. To maintain and maximize these security tools as well as already existing and functional policies and procedures, your company should implement a detailed security architecture that integrates these different elements for your networks.
This framework unifies various methods, processes and tools in order to protect an organization’s resources, data and other vital information. The success of a cybersecurity architecture relies heavily on the continuous flow of information throughout the entire organization. Everyone must work according to the framework and processes of your company’s security architecture.
Security Architecture Components
According to Internal Auditors, effective and efficient cybersecurity architecture consists of three major components. Those are people, processes and tools that work together to protect your company’s assets. To align these components effectively, your security architecture needs to be driven by your security policy. stating your security architecture expectation, implementation plan, and enforcement process.
A security policy is a statement that outlines how each entity accesses each other, what operations various entities can carry out, the level of protection that is required for a system as well as actions that should be taken when these security requirements are not met. The components listed below are part of an effective and carefully planned security architecture:
- Direction in the area of incident response to threats, disaster recovery, systems configuration, account creation and management, and cybersecurity monitoring.
- Identity management.
- Decided inclusion and exclusion of those subject to the domain of the security architecture.
- Access and border control.
- Validation and adjustment of the architecture.
- Training.
Features of Cybersecurity Architecture
The following are some of the features of cybersecurity architecture:
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Network Elements
- Network nodes like computers, NICs, repeaters, hubs, bridges, switches, routers, modems, gateways.
- Network communication protocols (TCP/IP, DHCP, DNS, FTP, HTTP, HTTPS, IMAP)
- Network connections between nodes using specific protocols
- Network topologies among nodes such as point-to-point, circular, chain, and hybrid
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Security Elements
- Cybersecurity devices like firewalls, Intrusion Detection/Protection Systems [IDS/IPS], encryption/decryption devices.
- Cybersecurity software (anti-virus software, spyware software, anti-malware software)
- Secure network communication protocols (TCP/IP, DHCP, DNS, FTP, HTTP, HTTPS, IMAP).
- Strong encryption techniques like end-to-end encryption, zero-knowledge privacy, blockchain.
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Security Frameworks & Standards
- Cybersecurity framework architecture standards like NIST Risk Management Framework (RMF) SP 800-37 and ISO IEC 27000-Series.
- Technology standards for cybersecurity software choices.
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Security Procedures & Policies
These are security procedures and policies directed towards your organization and enforced. According to Cybersecurity Forum, a cybersecurity architecture should ideally be definable and simulatable using an industry-standard architecture modeling language (e.g., SysML, UML2).
Key Phases in Security Architecture
These are the key phases in the security architecture framework and process:
- Architecture Risk Assessment: Here, you evaluate the influence of vital business assets, the risks, and the effects of vulnerabilities and security threats to your organization.
- Security Architecture and Design: At this phase, the design and architecture of security services are structured to aid the protection of your organization’s assets in order to facilitate business risk exposure objectives and goals.
- Implementation: Cybersecurity services and processes are operated, implemented, monitored and controlled. The architecture is designed to ensure that the security policy and standards, security architecture decisions, and risk management are fully implemented and effective for a long period.
- Operations and Monitoring: Here, measures like threat and vulnerability management and threat management are taken to monitor, supervise and handle the operational state in addition to examining the impact of the system’s security.
Purpose of Cybersecurity Architecture
The purpose of cybersecurity architecture is simply to ensure that the main network architecture of your company including sensitive data and critical applications are fully protected against any present or future threats and breaches. It’s important you fully understand the various weak points in your system in order to effectively and quickly proffer a solution.
The best way to identify your system’s weak point is to employ the services of a cybersecurity architect. A cybersecurity architect will thoroughly evaluate surface vulnerabilities for different network topologies and cyber-attacks to effectively defend your sensitive data and critical applications.
The primary goals of effective cybersecurity architecture are:
- To ensure that all cyber-attacks are minimized, mitigated against, hidden or dynamic.
- To ensure that cyber-attack surfaces should be relatively small in size, covertly stored, so that they are stealth in moving towards threat targets and difficult for cyber threats to detect and penetrate.
- To make sure all your confidential and sensitive data is strongly encrypted, and be subject to end-to-end encryption techniques during transfer.
- All cyber-attacks are aggressively detected, mitigated, and countered using countermeasures like Moving-Target Defenses (MTD).
Closing Thoughts
Cybersecurity architects are particularly skilled in identifying potential threats. They understand computer and network systems enough to design security architecture plans, implement these plans, and supervise the proper implementation.
RSI Security can help your organization by providing your IT department with qualified security experts to handle your next cloud architecture implementation. Our cybersecurity team can set up a secure network with the most up-to-date best practices. as well as support your organization in any technology it uses.
No matter how complex your IT environment is, we provide support for your organization in any technology that it uses and to professionally handle your cloud architecture implementation. Send a message now to reach our team of experienced cybersecurity architects.
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