A recent Omdia survey of over 400 security decision-makers found that 71% of organizations are increasing their investment in proactive security solutions, signaling a significant shift in the cybersecurity landscape. This surge in investment underscores the growing recognition that traditional, reactive approaches are no longer sufficient to protect against current and future cyber-attacks.
What is Proactive Security?
To start, what exactly is proactive security?
According to Omdia, proactive security involves anticipating, mitigating, and eliminating potential threats before they can cause harm. Unlike reactive security measures, which respond to incidents after they occur, proactive strategies focus on prevention. This includes continuous monitoring, threat intelligence, vulnerability management, and employee training.
But what does it take to build a truly proactive security program? It’s not just about labeling your program proactive and implementing new tools. It’s about creating a comprehensive strategy that addresses vulnerabilities before they can be exploited.
Don’t worry, though. In this post, we dive into key pillars for a proactive security program and provide you with questions to guide you as you adopt your cybersecurity approach to be more proactive.
Key Pillars of a Proactive Security Program
Risk-Based Vulnerability Management
Don’t just patch every vulnerability that comes along. Prioritize them based on the potential impact and likelihood of exploitation. This approach ensures that your resources are focused on the most critical risks. In its recent research report, Omdia emphasized that modern vulnerability management solutions need to “support persistent observability across the attack surface, enable risk-based vulnerability prioritization, and include an orchestration engine that can begin to automate patching and remediation.”
Assess Your Vulnerability Management for a Proactive Security Approach
- Do we have a clear understanding of our organization’s most critical vulnerabilities?
- Are we prioritizing vulnerabilities based on risk rather than just patching them in the order they are discovered?
- Are we using automation to streamline our vulnerability management processes?
Attack Surface Management
Understand your organization’s entire attack surface—all the potential entry points for attackers. This includes not only your network and systems but also your applications, data, and even your employees.
The Omdia report highlights that “61% of all respondents rated the ability to view risks through different attack frameworks/risk lenses (e.g., MITRE ATT&CK, Threat Intel) as critically important.”
Assess Your Attack Surface Management for a Proactive Security Approach
- Do we have a comprehensive inventory of all our assets and their vulnerabilities?
- Are we continuously monitoring our attack surface for new threats and vulnerabilities?
- Are we using threat intelligence to inform our attack surface management strategy?
Security Posture Management
Continuously assess and monitor your organization’s overall security posture. This involves identifying weaknesses, implementing improvements, and regularly testing your defenses.
Assess Your Security Posture Management for a Proactive Security Approach
- Do we have a clear understanding of our current security posture?
- Are we regularly assessing our security posture and identifying areas for improvement?
- How many IT and security tools are we using to monitor and maintain our environment? Do these tools help us communicate and collaborate better to keep up with new threats?
Automation
Embrace automation to streamline security processes, reduce human error, and enable faster response times. The Omdia report found that “79% of respondents view automated vulnerability remediation capabilities as important or mission critical.”
Assess Your Automation Capabilities for a Proactive Security Approach
- Are we automating repetitive IT and security tasks, such as patching and vulnerability scanning?
- Are we using automation to orchestrate our IT and security response processes?
- Are we leveraging automation to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of our IT and security teams?
Integrated Security Stack
Consider adopting an integrated security platform that can provide a holistic view of your security posture and facilitate seamless collaboration between different security tools. The report notes that “There is a strong market desire for proactive security capabilities to continue to consolidate into more integrated solutions or platforms.”
Assess Your Security Stack for a Proactive Security Approach
- Are our security tools integrated, or are they operating in silos?
- Do we have a centralized platform for managing our security posture?
- Are we able to easily share information and collaborate between different security teams?
Ready to see how your proactive security measures stack up?
Download the full Omdia Proactive Security research report today and discover how you can build a security program that truly protects your organization.
Syxsense: Your Partner in Proactive Security
Syxsense is a leading provider of proactive security solutions designed to help organizations identify what they have, prioritize IT and security risks across their infrastructure, and fix those issues before they can be exploited.
Our comprehensive platform offers automated patching, vulnerability scanning, and pre-built remediations, and more, empowering you to take a proactive approach to cybersecurity while maintaining a robust security posture.
Book a consultation today to find out how we can help you get up and running with proactive security capabilities in less than 30 days.
