What is Security Posture?

Security posture refers to the overall maturity of an organization’s cybersecurity program and its ability to protect itself against cyber threats. Some components of a corporate cybersecurity posture include the organization’s visibility into its digital attack surface, the security controls in place to prevent and detect cyberattacks, and the processes that the security team has in place to remediate and recover from a cybersecurity incident.

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What is Security Posture?

The Need for Security Posture

Companies are facing a growing number of sophisticated and automated cyberattacks. As cybercrime groups refine and expand their tools and techniques, it becomes more difficult to identify and respond to cyberattacks At the same time, many organizations’ IT infrastructures are growing larger and more complex. And as their digital attack surfaces expand, security teams have more work to do to protect them against cyberattacks.

 

A strong security posture demonstrates that an organization has the ability to effectively protect itself against cyber threats. Comprehensive visibility into its attack surface and the capability to address various cyber threats reduce an organization’s security risk exposure.

Key Components of Security Posture

A corporate security posture is composed of various components and factors, including:

  • IT Asset Inventory: A security team can’t effectively defend IT assets that it doesn’t know exists. A comprehensive asset inventory is essential to a strong security posture.
  • Attack Surface Visibility: An organization’s digital attack surface is composed of the various systems and vulnerabilities that an attacker can exploit to target an organization. Visibility into an organization’s attack surface is essential to deploying security controls to protect it.
  • Risk Assessment: Organizations rarely have the resources required to completely eliminate cyber threats to the business. Risk assessments determine the risk posed by a particular threat, enabling organizations to prioritize security actions.
  • Security Controls: Security controls protect the organization against various threats. A mature security posture includes having security controls in place to protect against the greatest threats to the business.
  • Incident Response: If an organization can’t prevent an attack from occurring, it needs to respond quickly and effectively to remediate it. An existing incident response team plan helps to expedite and enhance incident response activities.
  • Compliance and Governance: Security programs don’t exist in a vacuum – they are a part of the business as a whole. A mature security program has strong governance and complies with internal policies and external regulations.
  • Employee Training and Awareness: Employees are an organization’s first line of defense against cyber threats. Training employees to recognize and respond properly to phishing and other threats reduces the organization’s cybersecurity risk exposure.
  • Security Automation: Manual security management processes are slow and unscalable. Security automation enhances a corporate security posture by enabling it to more quickly detect, remediate, and recover from cyber threats.

Security Posture Assessment

An organization’s security posture is constantly evolving with the business. Performing a periodic security posture assessment can help the organization measure the current maturity of its cybersecurity program and identify potential gaps that it should address.

A security posture assessment can be broken up into the following five stages:

  1. Inventory of Assets: Determine which assets the organization owns that require protection.
  2. Identification of Vulnerabilities: Identify the potential vulnerabilities in these systems that make up the organization’s attack surface.
  3. Threat Analysis: Determine potential threats to the organization that might exploit these vulnerabilities and pose a risk to corporate operations.
  4. Risk Assessment: Quantify the risk posed by each threat based on probability and potential impacts to the organization.
  5. Recommendation for Improvements: Identify enhancements to security controls, processes, etc., to improve the organization’s protection against cyber threats.

How to Strengthen Your Security Posture

An organization can take various steps to enhance its security posture, including:

  • Automated Inventory Management: Perform automated inventories of corporate IT assets to provide real-time visibility into the systems under the organization’s care.
  • Regular Vulnerability Assessments: Automate vulnerability scanning and perform regular penetration tests to detect potential vulnerabilities and risks to an organization’s systems.
  • Risk Analysis: Perform regular risk assessments to ensure that cybersecurity investments and actions are properly prioritized.
  • Define Clear Metrics: Define clear, measurable metrics to evaluate the success and maturity of the cybersecurity program.
  • Policies and Procedures: Security policies and procedures help to reduce unintentional security errors and streamline incident management.
  • Security Control Review and Enhancement: Regularly review the effectiveness of an organization’s security controls for managing cybersecurity risk.
  • Employee Training and Awareness: Train employees on the latest threats to reduce exposure to phishing and similar threats.

Security Posture with CloudGuard CNAPP

For many organizations, the move to the cloud has complicated their security posture management. Unfamiliar infrastructure, limited control, and complex management reduce cloud security. To learn more about securing your cloud infrastructure, check out the Ultimate Cloud Security Guide.

 

Check Point CloudGuard Cloud Native Application Protection Platform (CNAPP) provides invaluable visibility into the security posture of an organization’s cloud applications. For more information about how CloudGuard CNAPP and the rest of the CloudGuard program can enhance your organization’s cloud security posture, sign up for a free demo today.

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