How to Enhance Defense in Depth with Cybersecurity Monitoring

Your defense in depth strategy exists so that you always have a “back up” in case one control fails to protect you. However, you can’t rely on that back up control to continuously protect your information. Since attackers continuously evolve their strategies, the control that works today may not work tomorrow. For example, if your host-based firewall requires an update, you have the network-based firewall as an additional security measure. While the network-based firewall maintains your security posture in the short term, leaving the host-based firewall unpatched means that you’ve compromised your defense in depth strategy by leaving one of the layers vulnerable. If attackers find a vulnerability in the network-based firewall before you patch the host-based firewall, you face a greater chance of being breach.

Cyber threat monitoring helps provide visibility into these weaknesses so that you can maintain your defense in depth strategy continuously. Maybe you didn’t know that the host-based firewall needed a security update. Even if your overburdened IT department knew that the firewall required an update, they may not have recognized that it was a security patch that needed to be a first priority. Updates often do nothing more than provide a better user experience or fix an insignificant coding bug. IT departments often become overwhelmed with alerts, unable to prioritize most important needs.

Cybersecurity monitoring solutions both alert organizations to new risks and provide insight into the risk level. A low-level risk update can wait. A high-risk level update needs to be installed as soon as possible. When IT departments have the right tools to empower them, they can better secure your information.