You’re working in cybersecurity and need to prioritize problems. What’s the best way to do it?
Cybersecurity is a dynamic and challenging field that requires constant vigilance and adaptation. As a cybersecurity professional, you have to deal with various threats, vulnerabilities, and incidents that affect the security and performance of your systems, networks, and data. How do you decide which problems to tackle first and which ones to leave for later? In this article, we will explore some of the best practices and frameworks that can help you prioritize problems in cybersecurity.
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Haroon Rashid BhatNLIU-MS Cyber Law & Information Security | ISO27001 | SOC1,2,3 | SOX(sarbanes-oxley) | HIPPA | GDPR | Risk Management |…
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Eduardo Rodrigues, Ph.D.Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering and Computing | Cybersecurity Enthusiast | Anatel (National Telecommunications Agency)…
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Rahul BakshiDriving Process Excellence, Efficiency Optimization & Continuous Improvement | Internal Controls | SAP Concur | Oracle…
The first step to prioritize problems in cybersecurity is to assess the impact of each problem on your organization's goals, operations, and reputation. Impact can be measured in terms of financial losses, operational disruptions, legal liabilities, customer satisfaction, and public trust. You can use quantitative metrics, such as downtime, revenue, costs, and compliance, or qualitative factors, such as brand image, customer loyalty, and stakeholder expectations, to evaluate the impact of each problem. The higher the impact, the higher the priority.
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Prioritizing cybersecurity problems is crucial for effective risk management. Here's a structured approach to prioritize cybersecurity problems: Risk Assessment: Conduct a comprehensive risk assessment to identify potential cybersecurity threats, vulnerabilities, and impacts to your organization's assets, systems, and data. This could involve using frameworks such as NIST Cybersecurity Framework or ISO 27001. Impact Analysis: Assess the potential impact of each identified risk on critical business functions, data integrity, confidentiality, availability, regulatory compliance, reputation, and financial implications. Likelihood Assessment: Evaluate the likelihood or probability of each risk occurring based on historical data, threat intel
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O NIST 2.0 fornece diretrizes abrangentes para segurança cibernética, e sua estrutura de gerenciamento de risco é particularmente útil para priorizar problemas. De forma genérica pode ser utlizados os passos: Identificar Ativos e Ameaças Avaliação de Riscos Priorização de Riscos: Desenvolvimento de Estratégia de Mitigação Implementação e Monitoramento
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Assessment of risk and impact is vital to prioritize the problems and issues in cybersecurity. You should prioritize based on likelihood and impact, allocate resources to address high-priority risks first and continuous periodic review and update priorities as needed. This approach ensures that critical cybersecurity issues are picked and addressed quickly and effectively, mitigating the risk to your organization.
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Quando se trata de priorizar problemas em cibersegurança, é importante ter uma abordagem estratégica. Primeiramente, o profissional de cyber precisa avaliar o risco associado a cada vulnerabilidade ou ameaça. Isso significa considerar não apenas a probabilidade de ocorrer, mas também o potencial impacto caso seja explorado por um atacante. Uma vez que você tenha uma compreensão clara dos riscos, é crucial focar nos problemas que têm o maior impacto em seus sistemas, dados ou operações. Isso pode incluir vulnerabilidades críticas que poderiam ser exploradas para causar danos significativos. Além disso, o profissional deve estar atento às tendências emergentes em cibersegurança e a ataques recentes que possam indicar ameaças imediatas.
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Priorize com base no potencial dano aos ativos críticos da organização, considerando a confidencialidade, integridade e disponibilidade dos dados. Use uma abordagem quantitativa quando possível, estimando perdas financeiras potenciais, tempo de inatividade esperado e recursos necessários para a recuperação. Considere também o impacto reputacional e as possíveis implicações legais ou regulatórias. Avalie a probabilidade de ocorrência do incidente, levando em conta o cenário de ameaças atual. Utilize frameworks de gestão de riscos, como o NIST, para uma metodologia sistemática na avaliação e priorização dos problemas de segurança cibernética.
The second step to prioritize problems in cybersecurity is to estimate the urgency of each problem. Urgency refers to how quickly a problem needs to be resolved before it causes more damage or becomes harder to fix. You can use indicators, such as frequency, severity, duration, and escalation, to gauge the urgency of each problem. For example, a problem that occurs frequently, has a high severity, lasts for a long time, or escalates to other systems or domains, is more urgent than a problem that does not have these characteristics. The higher the urgency, the higher the priority.
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Analise a severidade do impacto e a probabilidade de exploração. Comece identificando quais vulnerabilidades afetam ativos críticos e podem causar danos significativos à organização. Considere a facilidade de exploração: vulnerabilidades que requerem menos habilidade para serem exploradas ou que já têm exploits disponíveis devem ser tratadas com maior urgência. Monitore as tendências de ataques e alertas de segurança para avaliar se uma ameaça específica está sendo ativamente explorada no ambiente. Finalmente, leve em conta os prazos legais e regulatórios para conformidade. Esses critérios ajudarão a definir a ordem de prioridade para ação.
The third step to prioritize problems in cybersecurity is to consider the resources that are available and required to solve each problem. Resources include time, money, people, tools, and information. You have to balance the demand and supply of resources for each problem, taking into account the constraints and trade-offs that you face. For example, a problem that has a high impact and urgency, but also requires a lot of resources that you do not have, may not be feasible to solve in the short term. You may have to look for alternative solutions, such as mitigation, delegation, or outsourcing, or lower the priority of the problem until you have more resources.
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Considerar os recursos é primordial. Todo gestor em cibersegurança necessita ter uma visão clara dos recursos que dispõe. Um exemplo disso é compreender a sua disponibilidade de recursos tecnológicos e o nível de maturidade dos seus ativos humanos. Qual o grau de atualização de sua planta de equipamentos? Qual o nível de maturidade de sua equipe de profissionais? Perguntas difíceis que devem ser encaradas de frente, preferencialmente, antes dessa equipe deparar-se com um incidente real à sua frente.
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Ainda sobre os recursos, ao enfrentar problemas de cibersegurança, é crucial levar em conta os recursos disponíveis, como orçamento, pessoal e tempo. Isso ajudará a garantir que você esteja investindo seus esforços onde realmente importa e onde eles terão o maior impacto positivo na segurança da sua organização.
The fourth step to prioritize problems in cybersecurity is to apply a framework that can help you rank and compare the problems based on the criteria that you have established. A framework is a systematic and consistent way of making decisions that can reduce bias and uncertainty. There are different frameworks available, such as the Eisenhower Matrix, the MoSCoW Method, and the Pareto Principle. The Eisenhower Matrix divides problems into four quadrants based on their impact and urgency; the MoSCoW Method categorizes problems into four groups according to importance; and the Pareto Principle states that 80% of effects come from 20% of causes. When prioritizing, focus on the problems that are important and urgent first, then plan for those that are important but not urgent, delegate or outsource those that are not important but urgent, and eliminate or ignore those that are not important and not urgent. Additionally, prioritize those with most impact and least effort in order to maximize value and return on investment. Finally, avoid problems with least impact and most effort in order to save time and resources.
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Applying a cybersecurity framework can help prioritize problems by providing a structured approach to assessing and managing cybersecurity risks. Frameworks like NIST Cybersecurity Framework, ISO/IEC 27001, and CIS Controls offer guidelines and best practices for identifying, protecting, detecting, responding to, and recovering from cybersecurity threats. By following a framework, organizations can systematically evaluate their cybersecurity posture, prioritize areas for improvement, and implement measures to strengthen their security defenses.
Communication is the fifth step to prioritize problems in cybersecurity, as it is essential to ensure alignment, collaboration, and transparency among the parties involved in solving the problems. You should communicate the criteria and framework used to prioritize the problems, as well as their ranking and comparison based on their impact, urgency, and resources. Additionally, it is important to provide the rationale and justification for your decisions and trade-offs, along with the expectations and responsibilities for each problem and each party. Finally, feedback and suggestions for improvement or adjustment should be discussed.
The sixth and final step to prioritize problems in cybersecurity is to review and update the priorities regularly. Cybersecurity is a dynamic and changing field which necessitates monitoring and evaluation. You should review and update the priorities based on the progress and results of solving the problems, changes and trends in the threat landscape, feedback from your team, stakeholders, and customers, as well as lessons learned and best practices from your experience and peers. This will ensure that you are always focusing on the most important problems in cybersecurity.
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Keep in mind that you will never remove all risks to the organisation, and you should not be aiming for that. Our goal as cybersecurity professionals is to minimise the risk as much as we can, while allowing the organisation to run in a more secure, less risky environment.
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