Strategies for Building Cohesive Security Programs

It’s Time to Re-evaluate How We Approach Cybersecurity Programs

Over the last two decades, the field of cybersecurity has undergone explosive growth. The shift to a digitallydriven economy, the rapid progress and adoption of new technologies, the rise of advanced attacks and the commoditization of offensive tools have all contributed to cybersecurity’s continued evolution. Unfortunately, up until very recently the typical response to new and evolving threats has been to buy new tools–often managed by siloed teams–to address individual problems in an attempt to keep pace with adversaries while still maintaining smooth business operations. So far, this scattered approach has been less than successful, and the longer we continue to act this way the harder it becomes to maintain programs that can adapt and address new threats.

This paper examines the evolution of the cybersecurity landscape and how security programs must shift to a more cohesive and continuous approach that covers three key areas:

• A solid program baseline established through in-depth visibility into the program’s tools and techniques, and a realistic assessment of the maturity of both.
• A scalable plan to remediate security gaps and improve existing solutions and workflows.
• Continuous validation and testing of controls in place, with an eye for honest appraisal of outstanding deficiencies