Digital risks are rampant. Copycat webpages, misconfigurations, data exfiltration and leakage – there are an anxiety inducing number of ways in which businesses may fall prey to a mistake or attack and suffer incredibly painful consequences, writes Carl Shallow, pictured, Director of CRA Services/ Solution Architect, Integrity360.
The challenge is that many firms simply aren’t set up to manage their risks effectively. Without the resources or expertise to view, manage and mitigate the threats facing them, they remain vulnerable. However, at the same time, the budgets required to develop a risk management function in house simply aren’t feasible.
Resultantly, many organisations are seeking the support of third-party threat intelligence and digital risk protection providers, employing them to work hand in hand with internal analysts to plug any gaps in technologies, capabilities and/or skillsets effectively and affordably.
What is managed digital risk protection?
Managed digital risk protection is a service typically comprising of threat detection and response capabilities that organisations can leverage to add an additional layer of security, boosting visibility over vulnerabilities and potential exposures. Data leakage detection is a typical use case of managed digital risk protection, allowing organisations to detect and respond at speed if sensitive company information is leaked.
Additional use cases include brand protection activities such as the detection and removal of copycat domains, as well as the reduction of attack surfaces, providing an attacker’s view into potentially exposed exploitable vulnerabilities, open ports, misconfigurations, or weak/expiring certificates.
Why should I consider third-party protection?
A key benefit of working with a managed digital risk protection provider is that is frees up your internal security team to address high value security tasks, making more significant improvements to your security setup than they otherwise could. Further, managed digital risk protection can also serve to reduce the workloads and possibility of burnout among the SOC team – something that affects more than 70 per cent of analysts.
It’s a win-win scenario, enabling you to work with industry-leading experts while aiding internal analysts by freeing up their time and reducing their stress.
Is managed digital risk protection right for me?
Of course, managed digital risk protection will be better suited to some firms than others. Consider your unique situation: Am I aware of the key threats facing businesses similar to my own? Do I have business critical data that would result in significant damages should it be leaked? Could my business or customers be harmed by a threat actor impersonating or misusing my brand?
By taking the time to consider the level of risk facing your firm, you’ll be able to assess the extent of any damages that could be incurred and determine whether digital risk protection and managed threat intelligence services are right for you.
What should I look for in a provider?
If you deem them to be necessary, you should work to identify a provider that will meet your specific needs and maximise your investment and protection. Indeed, not all services are made equal. So, what should you look for when weighing up the competition?
1.Holistic visibility
All too often, organisations will have a narrow security scope, with visibility either largely or solely focused on key elements such as their users, assets and equipment that allows them to be very targeted. However, managing external digital risks is a critically important, albeit much more complex matter. The open web that most of us know accounts for roughly just 5pc of the total content of the web. To provide holistic protection, any managed digital risk protection provider should also be able to navigate the dark web and deep web to eliminate blind spots and protect against threats such as brand impersonation and/or the misuse of stolen data.
2.Round-the-clock service
Any provider should also be proficient in monitoring and responding to threats on a 24/7/365 basis with technically proficient and experienced threat intelligence and security analysts and leading-edge technologies. If the serviced organisation is exposed, the SOC must be able to respond by identifying the level of risk and then taking immediate action, if necessary, by either instigating a takedown procedure or notifying the in-house security team with advice on remediation.
3.Tailored threat intelligence
Additionally, managed service security providers should offer tailored threat intelligence that’s truly relevant to your individual organisation, ensuring that resources and budgets are focused on mitigating your greatest risks. In an era that is becoming increasingly defined by the digital threat landscape, bespoke solutions can be the difference between incurring or avoiding the significant costs and/or damages associated with a cyber-attack.
