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Threat actors are moving fast. But is your security strategy? A dynamic, proactive security approach is your best bet for protecting critical business systems and data. And Continuous Threat Exposure Management (CTEM) is the foundation for taking a proactive stance against cyber threats. This guide provides essential cybersecurity steps to implementing CTEM in your business:
Step 1: Assess Your Current Security Posture
Knowing your security systems gives you a snapshot of current CTEM capabilities and gaps you need to fill. Here’s how to start:
Conducting a Security Gap Analysis
What does your IT environment look like? Are there current vulnerabilities where threats could go undetected? Do you have controls to monitor vulnerabilities, threats, and other activity? Are they aligned with your security objectives of going “proactive?” If not, how can you ensure they do?
A gap analysis can answer all these questions. It clarifies your starting point and provides direction for your CTEM journey.
Setting Clear Security Goals
What do you aim to achieve through CTEM? Setting security goals can tell you where you want to go. It gives you a measurement of success during CTEM implementation. We have some examples to get you started. Finish the thought, “We want to…”
- Enable faster response times to cyber incidents and threats
- Improve threat visibility
- Reduce the attack surface size
- Enhance vulnerability risk management (fast patching, fixes, etc.)
Step 2: Select the Right CTEM Tools and Technologies
CTEM itself isn’t a tool but a method. A method, however, powered by tools and technologies that facilitate proactive security.
Automated Threat Detection Tools
Imagine you’re monitoring user behavioral activity at an enterprise. You’re probably getting thousands of event data points every day. So, how do you know whether or not one of those events is a threat actor trying to penetrate your network? Rather than manually sifting through and analyzing logs for suspicious activity, you can adopt automated tools to do the heavy lifting.
Endpoint detection and response (EDR) tools, Intrusion Detection Systems (IDS), and Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) Systems do just that. They integrate with your existing infrastructure to provide real-time threat identification. This lets you stay proactive and minimize the risk of undetected vulnerabilities and successful attacks.
Integrating Threat Intelligence Platforms
Threat intelligence platforms keep you informed on emerging risks. They can enrich your internal security data by helping you understand tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) deployed by attackers around the world.
These insights keep you proactive and agile, particularly against emerging threats. You know exactly what to look for in your network and become better equipped to anticipate and respond to incoming threats.
Build a Cross-Functional CTEM Team
You want proactive security through CTEM? Build a team committed to cyber resilience.
Defining Roles and Responsibilities
A CTEM program takes various security specialists. Some key roles you’ll need to fill include:
- Vulnerability management personnel: Spots and prioritizes system weaknesses or exploitable components in your tech stack using constant scans and assessments. Their job is to reduce the risk of exploitation by proactively managing vulnerabilities.
- Threat analysis and research specialist: Monitors and analyzes emerging threats to your organization by tracking attack trends and TTPs. They provide actionable intelligence you can use to enhance security strategies and stay one step ahead of potential attacks.
- Incident response team: Responds to and manages threats or confirmed incidents targeting your business. Their job is to stay prepared for emerging threats, minimize any attack impact, and constantly improve future response efforts.
Keep in mind you don’t need all these positions in-house. Partnering with a managed detection and response (MDR) with CTEM capabilities can give you the personnel you need for success.
Promoting Cross-Department Collaboration
CTEM implementation takes a lot of moving parts. Your cybersecurity and IT teams must work together to adopt a proactive security strategy. A threat research team, for example, can share known malicious email addresses with an IT manager — letting them blacklist those addresses from the server.
Similarly, incident response teams can coordinate with IT to run simulated attack scenarios. This helps IT know their role in isolating a compromised network segment, getting backup systems online, or handling other activity during a cyber attack.
To promote this collaboration, encourage regular communication and shared intelligence across teams.
Step 4: Integrating CTEM with Existing Security Infrastructure
Consistent processes and reliable technology power your security operation. So, can you align your CTEM program for a smooth and effective transition? Here are some things to consider during the cybersecurity integration process:
Ensuring Compatibility with Current Systems
Before implementing CTEM supporting tools, assess your current security systems for compatibility. How?
- Evaluate cybersecurity integration capabilities by reviewing product documentation.
- Use pilot testing to see if tools supporting CTEM integrate and function correctly with your security stack.
- Talk to your vendor for support (they often have third-party developers who can help you).
This thoroughness is crucial to preventing security operation disruptions. For instance, if your new threat intelligence platform isn’t synced properly to your EDR tools, you might miss specific behavioral data indicating an attack is underway.
Establishing Continuous Data Flow
Continuous monitoring is at the forefront of a CTEM program. Obtaining this visibility demands collecting and analyzing data. CTEM tools need real-time access to relevant data — all the time.
But that data comes from different sources. From EDR tools and threat intelligence platforms to vulnerability scanners and SIEM, it all must be unified as one data flow. This enhances attack surface visibility so that it can spot and respond quickly to emerging threats.
Step 5: Monitor, Measure, and Optimize CTEM
So, you finally underwent CTEM adoption. Unfortunately, your journey doesn’t end there. Ongoing monitoring and improvement are essential to maintain program effectiveness and adaptability to new threats.
Setting Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)
Remember those security goals we set earlier (e.g., enabling faster response times, improving threat visibility, etc.)? It’s time to see how they’re holding up. Have you sped up incident response times? Reduced vulnerabilities? Or lowered incident frequency?
These metrics help you evaluate whether your CTEM efforts were worth the investment and resulting in improved security outcomes.
Regularly Reviewing and Adapting Strategies
Upon setting your KPIs, review your CTEM program for effectiveness. Schedule frequent assessments to see whether you’re on the right track or need to adjust the strategy.
Are your tools performing properly? Is security data getting where it needs to go? Have you put security teams in a better position to identify threats, patch up vulnerabilities, and respond to cyber threats? Even ones using nuanced TTPs?
This will determine whether you’re shifting from reactive security to a proactive approach that prepares you for changing threats.
5 Cybersecurity Steps to a Proactive Strategy
Reactive approaches to cybersecurity don’t cut it anymore. Threat actors are too sophisticated, and the stakes are too high. Follow our steps to CTEM implementation, and you can embrace a proactive security posture to stay one step ahead of modern cyber threats. Start your CTEM journey today!