#infosec Archives - IT Solutions

May 19, 2023May 31, 2023 admin Artificial Intelligence

The Role Of Artificial Intelligence

The results of Red Teaming were promising for Advanced Defence Systems. ADS had vastly improved their defensive posture.

But in Nilay’s (CEO of ADS) mind, advanced cyber security was not just necessary to maintain the defensive posture of the firm, it was necessary to gain competitive advantage in the marketplace. He turned to Seema, ADS CISO (Chief Information Security Officer) on what could be done next.

Seema suggested deployment of artificial intelligence (AI) in security operations centre (SOC) to transform the way they could thwart cyber threats. She explained to Nilay that;

AI has the potential to help automate many of the processes involved in security operations.
AI in SOC would use machine learning (ML) algorithms to “analyze” vast amounts of data and detect anomalies that may indicate a cyber threat.
It can carry out vulnerability assessment (VA) and detect threats in real time, providing SOC analysts with the information they need to respond quickly and effectively to mitigate the impact of a security incident.

Over time, ADS began to implement a range of AI-powered solutions in their SOC. They used machine learning algorithms and leveraged natural language processing (NLP) to better understand the content of emails and other communications.

The results that started coming in immediately post implementation were not fully accurate. There were some false positives and false negatives that needed to be addressed.

But Seema was sure that the AI package they had deployed in their SOC would start using ML algorithms to analyse vast amounts of data to detect anomalies that may indicate a cyber-attack. In a few months’ time ADS started reaping the benefits of their latest cyber defence intervention. AI helped them detect threats in real time, providing SOC analysts with the information they need to respond quickly and effectively to mitigate the impact of a security incident.

As time progressed, the AI solution in ADS’ SOC was able to learn from past incidents and improve its accuracy. ADS’ SOC had thus become more effective at detecting and preventing attacks as time went on.

Nilay was happy on two fronts – his organisation’s defensive posture was state-of-the-art. This helped them develop defence technologies under the shroud of secrecy they wanted. Secondly, a strong cyber defense posture provided huge competitive advantage to ADS in the marketplace. The trust that their customers placed in them far outranked ADS’ competitors. ADS had to spend much less time dealing with attacks, therefore they could focus more on their business & customers.

What are you focused on? Customers, or cyber defence?

If you have queries related to 𝘾𝙮𝙗𝙚𝙧 𝙎𝙚𝙘𝙪𝙧𝙞𝙩𝙮, reach out to our in-house Cyber Security experts. They are happy to hear from you info@cmsitservices.com. You could also reach out to us on our website https://www.cmsitservices.com/contact-us/.

May 2, 2023May 31, 2023 admin Blog, Security

Next Generation Security Operations Centre – 10 primary components

The Security Operations Centre (SOC) is an essential part of an organization’s cybersecurity strategy. As cyber threats continue to evolve, the SOC must also evolve to keep pace with these changes.

Here are ten characteristics of the next generation SOC:

Real-time threat detection: The next generation SOC must be able to detect threats in real-time to respond quickly to cyber incidents.
Automation and orchestration: The SOC should leverage automation and orchestration to streamline its operations, allowing analysts to focus on high-level tasks.
Integration with other security technologies: The next generation SOC should integrate with other security technologies such as endpoint protection, firewalls, and threat intelligence platforms to provide a more comprehensive defense.
Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning: AI and ML can help automate routine tasks, identify patterns, and improve the accuracy and speed of threat detection.
Cloud-native: The next generation SOC should be cloud-native, allowing for better scalability and flexibility.
Integrated Incident Response: The SOC should have an integrated incident response plan, enabling analysts to respond to security incidents quickly and effectively.
DevSecOps: The next generation SOC should embrace DevSecOps practices, ensuring that security is integrated throughout the development process.
Proactive threat hunting: The SOC should proactively search for threats, rather than just responding to alerts, to identify potential threats before they become an issue.
User and Entity Behavior Analytics: The SOC should use analytics to understand user and entity behavior, identifying abnormal activity that may indicate a security breach.
Continuous improvement: The next generation SOC must be committed to continuous improvement, regularly evaluating its performance, and making changes to improve its effectiveness.

In summary, the next generation SOC should be agile, automated, and integrated with other security technologies. It should leverage AI and ML to improve threat detection and have an integrated incident response plan. The SOC should be cloud-native and embrace DevSecOps practices, proactively search for threats, use analytics to understand user and entity behavior, and be committed to continuous improvement.

April 25, 2023May 19, 2023 admin Cyber Security

Red Teaming – Creating A Response To Attacks, Creating A Prevention Layer

Nilay, the CEO of Advanced Defence Systems, a defence products manufacturing firm prided himself on two things. The technologically advanced defence products they were manufacturing for Indian armed forces, and the cybersecurity measures they had in place to protect their own systems – firewalls, antivirus software, data protection, just to name a few. To ensure that they stay ahead of the curve, ADS had hired external consultants to conduct regular penetration tests to ensure they had data security.

ADS’s products were gaining market share. Their continued success, however, brought its own challenges. When everything appeared hunky dory, Seema Singh, ADS’ CISO (Chief Information Security Officer) reported to Nilay a major data breach that compromised the database security, endpoint security and posed other cyber threats.

Anyone could have been their adversary – venomous terrorists, malicious subversives, agenda-chasing political criminals, surreptitious state-backed foreign intelligence services, curious computer hackers, evil commercial competitors, dishonest insiders, disgruntled staff, trusted but careless business partners, or rogue administrators.

Nilay knew that he could not allow this to be repeated. In a review of their defensive posture with Seema, She suggested that it was time to go for Red teaming – a simulated cyber-attack, designed to test an organization’s security defenses to identify vulnerabilities that an attacker could exploit to gain unauthorized access to an organization’s systems or data. Nilay made up his mind and wanted to give it a try. Seema brought together a team of ethical hackers and other IT professionals.

The team proposed its plan. It involved the following important steps:

Planning and Scoping: The first step in red teaming was to define the scope of the exercise and plan the attack. This involved identifying the assets that need to be protected and developing a strategy for the attack.
Reconnaissance: They conducted reconnaissance to gather information about the organization’s systems and networks. This involved scanning for vulnerabilities and identifying potential targets.
Weaponization: Once the reconnaissance was completed, the red team developed the attack tools and techniques that will be used to exploit vulnerabilities in the organization’s defenses.
Delivery: The red team delivered the attack. They used social engineering techniques to gain access to the organization’s systems or networks.
Exploitation: The red team exploited vulnerabilities in the organization to gain access to sensitive data and systems.
Post-Exploitation: Now the red team just had to maintain access to the organization’s systems and networks – installed backdoor and other malicious software.
Reporting: The red team documented the results and provided a report to the management. It had recommendations for improving the organization’s security defenses.

By simulating a real-world cyber-attack, ADS was able to identify weaknesses that could be exploited by real-world attackers. Technology is not static. It keeps on evolving. As defensive postures evolve, so do attacks and attackers.

Nilay agreed with Seema’s suggestion to carry our red teaming regularly and stay ahead of the curve by maintaining effectiveness of ADS’ security defences and keeping them state of the art.

How about you? Is your cyber defence up to date?

February 23, 2023April 16, 2023 admin Cyber Security

How Information Security & Cyber Security are cousins

“A ship is safe in harbor, but that’s not what ships are built for.”

—John A. Shedd

Cyber refers to the digital world and all things related to technology and the internet. This includes online communication, computers, networks, and the security of these systems from unauthorized access and harm. In short, cyber refers to the virtual world and ensuring its safety.

So, cybersecurity is the practice of protecting computer systems, networks, and internet-connected devices from digital attacks, theft, and damage. This involves implementing various technologies, processes, and practices to secure sensitive information and prevent unauthorized access, hacking, and other cyber threats. The goal of cybersecurity is to keep the internet and connected devices safe and secure for individuals, businesses, and governments.

Information security and cybersecurity are closely related but slightly different concepts. Information security refers to the protection of information and data from unauthorized access, use, disclosure, disruption, modification, or destruction. This encompasses a wide range of practices and technologies, including access control, encryption, firewalls, and backup and recovery systems.

Information Security = Cyber + Physical

In short, information security is a broad term that encompasses all aspects of protecting information, while cybersecurity specifically focuses on the protection of digital systems and networks.

To make information security solutions precisely effective, clients focus on use cases. In the context of cybersecurity, a use case is a specific scenario or situation that describes how a security event or incident should be detected, investigated, and/or responded to by an organization’s security operations team. A use case typically includes a set of rules, criteria, or thresholds that define what constitutes an abnormal or suspicious activity that requires further investigation or response.

Purple is commonly used in information security- purple from mixing red for offense and blue for defense. Purple Teaming is a collaborative process that combines the expertise and knowledge of both the “blue team” (defenders) and the “red team” (attackers) to improve an organization’s cybersecurity defenses. The objective of Purple Teaming is to identify and close gaps in an organization’s security posture, as well as to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of the overall security strategy. In a Purple Team engagement, the blue team provides the red team with access to its systems, tools, and processes, and then actively works with them to identify vulnerabilities, test defenses, and develop mitigation strategies. Through this collaboration, the blue team gains a better understanding of the organization’s vulnerabilities, and the red team learns how to improve its attack methodologies. The Purple Teaming approach helps organizations to prepare better for real-world attacks and to improve their security posture over time continuously.

If you have any thoughts or questions about your organisation’s security postures or initiatives, feel free to write to info@cmsitservices.com.

June 28, 2018June 14, 2020 admin Information Security

Information Security: How critical is it?

As per the current trends, the news of some or the other organization falling victim of foul cyberattack led breach, resulting in exposure of sensitive information and confidential data is no more a rare scenario.
When servers were securely encrypted and hidden away behind the corporate firewalls and perimeter-deployed intrusion prevention controls, enterprises took the security aspect complacently and completely relied on their host information security system. However, unforeseen events and actions have exposed the inadequately architected information security controls.
Network-based protection has made the businesses information quite vulnerable to attacks while the migration to hybrid cloud and private domains is imminently executed. The ever-changing cyber-threat landscape poses a critical challenge of keeping data secure whilst the evolving complexity of cyber threats whether a virus attack, cyber-fraud or espionage is getting intricate and daunting.
Regardless of the growing complexity of operations and magnanimity of enterprise networks, organizations still continue to jeopardize the security and as per 2018 State of Application Delivery (SOAD) report as many as 36% of businesses have only 25% of their applications secured. This needs to change – mainly the approach towards the alarming issue of IT information security (infosec) as we discuss.
Guiding Principles of Infosec: CIA
Information security is designed to protect the enterprise assets – digital and non-digital in every format from spiteful intentions. The core objectives ensure that confidential and sensitive information is made accessible to only authorized party (confidential), ward off unsanctioned data modification (Integrity) and ensure the data availability to all the authorized party as and when required (availability), commonly referred to as the CIA triad, the combined features of infosec program. Infosec is a blanket term that encompasses compliance, risk and protection from unauthorized access, usage, expose, disruption, changes or ruining of the network and the data. CIA triad is the basis to a robust information security system.
The big question is which one of these CIA attributes is the most important. The answer and approach are completely based on businesses to evaluate and align their mission, goals, services, compliance perimeter and SLAs. In all likelihood all the components of CIA take the priority and organizations in that case should ensure equal allocation of resources for seamless implementation of CIA.
For confidentiality of information the critical aspect is encryption to ensure only authorized personnel can access and decode the information. As an alternative, information can be kept confidential through enforced permission and access control to sensitive information to restrict the accessibility.
Integrity entails protecting the information from unauthorized personnel since information holds value only if it is accurate. Cryptography is the key to keep the information integral through securely hashing the original message. Availability is conducive and valued when the information is made accessible to the right people at the time they need, and backup is the key to it to ward off disruption and destruction.
Security Imminent to be part of Organizational Culture
Information technology has become an integral part of every aspect of the enterprise world. Hence, fostering data security for business assurance is indispensable. Infosec cannot happen in silos, it is a shared endeavor to be incorporated into the organizational culture. Be it, employees, business partners or other stakeholders, personnel with access to sensitive data should not view security as an added cost burden; rather, awareness about cyber-attacks and threats should be the top priority even for casual technology users in an organization
A minor security lapse can result in serious security risks that have the capability to jeopardize business operations and result in serious loss. Business enterprises must accept and proactively initiate security implementations. Though laws remain static for some time, technology is a dynamic agent. It keeps changing evolving and changing technology undoubtedly brings new types of threats. So, while laws on information security might not get updated with technological changes, companies must look beyond their legal requirements and take a robust security stance.
CMS IT Proposition
Enterprises encounter serious security breaches despite investing heavily in Information security infrastructure. Hackers shrewdly devise new ways to breach the Information security of enterprise networks, either from within the company or from outside.
Research suggests that nearly 90% of enterprise breaches could be prevented through proper monitoring. Having said so, setting up a dedicated Security Operations Centre (SOC) to monitor the data and network is an enormous challenge because of high set-up costs, demands significant time and efforts, and increasing shortage of skilled in-house experts. Our SOCs at Bangalore and Mumbai offices are robust with in-house skilled expertise to take care of all types of business information security needs.
CMS IT’s Integrated Information Security framework security program revolves around process-driven human intelligence managing best-in-class technologies with better business service SLAs and security SLAs. We automate the processes through our end-to-end Artificial Intelligence as well. We offer solutions to complex business enterprise network securities through consistent and efficient tailored infosec services to cater to the organizational security goals and requirements.
As one of India’s top IT services firms, CMS IT provides complete solutions to large corporations across all sectors, including banking, insurance, retail, telecom and manufacturing. We provide new, cost effective and cutting-edge IT infrastructure solutions that are reliable, resilient and responsive. With decades of experience CMS IT’s security operations center (SOC) model is progressive and designed to meet all the advanced cyber security.
Conclusion
Excessive connectivity, governance pressure and sky-rocketing customer expectations are all together having a major impact on the modus operandi of companies to proactively address the alarming risks to their network security from all quarters. Whether financial services or retail sector, digital transformation landscape is the key driver to all the applications. Cloud adoption has undeniably heightened the need to step up from the conventional security measures, to stay abreast of the rapid rise in users, applications, data and infrastructure.
In today’s sprawling global networking and digital world, App security contributes a major share in the reputation management. Businesses need to deliver services with higher speed, adaptive functionality with utmost security.
Reference
Cobb, S. (2018). The 5 IT security actions to take now based on 2018 Trends. Retrieved from https://www.welivesecurity.com/2018/04/04/5-security-actions-cyber-risks-trends/
Cotextis. (2018). What’s a Security Operations Centre (SOC) and why should I care? Retrieved from https://www.contextis.com/blog/whats-security-operations-centre-soc-and-why-should-i-care
Durbin, S. (2018). The Top Five Global Cyber Security Threats for 2018. Retrieved from https://www.cso.com.au/article/632468/top-five-global-cyber-security-threats-2018

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