How Velocity Can Impact Cyber Security Strategy

The battle between enterprise IT teams and hackers is a battle between the tortoise and the hare. Hackers move quickly as they test cyber security defenses for weaknesses. Once they find a way in, they’re ready to wreak havoc in a matter of minutes. Meanwhile, it can take IT teams months or even years before they even discover an attack, let alone stop the attack, remediate the original issue, and fully recover.

According to the Online Trust Alliance’s 2018 Cyber Incidents & Breach Trends Report, cyber attacks had a total impact of more than $45 billion in 2018. This is one race where “slow and steady” is not enough to win. In this case, the tortoise needs to take a page out of the hare’s playbook and prioritize speed. 

By focusing on velocity in your cyber security strategy, you’ll be able to even the odds between your enterprise and attackers while mitigating any damage they manage to do. Here are five things you can do to increase velocity for your cyber security strategy in order to manage any potential cyber risk:

1. Start With a Plan: There are several technology solutions that can help you increase your cyber risk visibility, and therefore velocity of response. However, all the visibility in the world won’t help if you don’t have an effective response plan. Verizon’s Incident Response Planning services can help you build out a tailored incident response plan so that you’re ready to go at the first sign of an attack. 
   
   
2. Watch Your Network: Your network traffic can often show subtle signs of intrusion… if you know when and where to look. That means you need to look everywhere, all the time, in the form of near real-time network threat detection. Verizon’s Network Detection and Response allows real-time monitoring of massive amounts of data across every aspect of your network — enterprise, cloud, industrial, IoT and 5G — so you can detect evidence of known and unknown attacks and take action against them.
   
   
3. Unleash AI: It’s impossible for even the largest team of IT experts to look through every nook and cranny of the network for threats. Verizon’s Autonomous Threat Hunting solution uses advanced machine learning techniques to automate the threat hunting process, producing a manageable list of prioritized alerts. You can then use the list to quickly identify and eliminate threats.
   
   
4. Streamline your SIEM: While your Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) tools are generating more data than ever, all that data can make it difficult to identify an imminent threat. Verizon’s Managed Security Information and Event Management services combine our security and intelligence capabilities with your SIEM solution to provide a more streamlined event escalation process and a higher level of security monitoring. 
   
   
5. Don’t Go It Alone: While a breach is an all-hands-on-deck event, sometimes all your hands aren’t enough. That’s where a cyber security partner comes in. Verizon’s Computer Emergency Response Team Services can help you scale your cyber security strategy and operations in your time of need so that you can quickly respond to cyber attacks. With our team of cyber security experts standing at the ready, you’ll get access to the best practices, processes, and tools you need to get back in control. 
   

When it comes to cyber security, it’s both a marathon and a sprint. You need to be able to diligently keep up your security day in and day out, while still being able to quickly react to any threats that come up. Verizon can help you react faster with our unified set of cyber security advisory services so that you can develop a cyber security strategy with velocity. 

Learn more about Verizon Security Advisory Services.