Artificial intelligence (AI) has significantly shifted the cybersecurity landscape. Cybercriminals are now exploiting the technology to create more convincing phishing emails to deliver malware and, ultimately, ransomware.
It’s crucial that organizations shift mindsets around security to protect themselves in this rapidly evolving security environment effectively. That means moving from a prevention-focused approach to one that prioritizes cybersecurity resilience.
What does that look like? In essence, it means implementing strong preventive measures while preparing for potential breaches through investments in response and recovery solutions. To be resilient, a business must create detailed response plans, conduct regular drills, and ensure its systems are “secure by design.”
MSPs can play an essential role in enhancing their customers’ cyber resilience. They can do this by leveraging resources like the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) 2.0 Cybersecurity Framework (CSF) to guide their customers through the various components of a robust cybersecurity posture, including risk management, privacy, AI-based tools, and secure software design.
Understanding the components of cyber resilience
According to “The CIO report: Leading your business through cyber risk,” from Barracuda:
The security end goal for all organizations is cyber resilience. Effective prevention and detection measures remain critical to security strategies, but companies shouldn’t stop there. The evidence suggests that the likelihood of being affected by a security incident is almost inevitable. Many organizations fall victim repeatedly, particularly if they have not addressed the root cause of the first incident or the factors that allowed it to unfold. How you prepare for, withstand, respond to, and recover from an incident matters. This is cyber resilience.
Cyber resilience involves effective risk management, not just the ability to prevent or react to the latest attacks. This approach makes organizations safer because their infrastructure and processes are built to be secure from the ground up, which makes it harder to mount a successful attack, regardless of what new approaches or technologies have emerged.
However, according to the Barracuda report, just 43% of respondents believe they can effectively address cyber risk. This is where MSPs have a chance to make a real difference.
Common challenges in cybersecurity risk management include:
- Difficulty implementing company-wide security policies
- A lack of buy-in from senior management
- Visibility into third parties with access to sensitive data
- A lack of budget or cybersecurity staff
- A lack of incident response plans or regular testing/drills
NIST defines cyber resilience as: “The ability to anticipate, withstand, recover from, and adapt to adverse conditions, stresses, attacks, or compromises on systems that use or are enabled by cyber resources.” Resilience is important because no company is entirely breach-proof. Detection, response, and recovery plans are just as important as strong preventive measures/technology.
There are several critical pieces to a cyber resilience program. At a high level, those include:
- The ability to identify essential assets, map existing processes, and assess current vulnerabilities and readiness
- Use of robust security solutions to protect assets
- The ability to detect threats using automation and analysis
- The ability to quickly respond to attacks and breaches
- Recovery processes to promptly restore data and operations
Follow the cyber resilience checklist
The updated NIST CSF 2.0 provides guidance on achieving effective cybersecurity practices and resilience. The update is targeted at a much broader audience to make it more useful across industries and directly address governance issues around cybersecurity.
Governance is critical for resilience, and the CSF not only addresses organizational structures but also provides specific guidance on breaking down cybersecurity silos within organizations. This builds on the original version, which outlined the need for protection, detection, recovery, and other elements of a strong cybersecurity program.
Cyber resilience is the direction of travel for many organizations, but it needn’t be out of reach for smaller, resource-constrained businesses. With the right approach and consolidated, platform-based tooling, SMBs and mid-market organizations can drive digital-powered growth without compromising security.
CSF also outlines different implementation tiers that can help companies assess their cybersecurity practices and set goals for improvement. These range from Tier 1 (with basic, often ad-hoc, security solutions and awareness) to Tier 4, in which adaptive and well-integrated security practices are deployed across a company and continuously improved using advanced technology like AI.
The CIO report mentioned earlier includes a cyber resilience checklist that draws on the NIST CSF 2.0 and categorizes the list into four sections:
- Prepare
- Withstand
- Respond
- Recover
Each segment includes three to five questions that MSPs can review with their customers, ranging from regulatory compliance and management involvement to business continuity planning and post-recovery lessons learned questions.
Resilience is a combination of security tools and best practices
While resilience requires having foundational processes and practices in place (like regular training/awareness, executive buy-in, and up-to-date response and recovery plans), technology also plays a role. For example, tools like Barracuda Managed XDR can address all core CSF 2.0 functions. Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) platforms can also consolidate critical functions like Zero Trust Network Access, secure gateways, and firewall-as-a-service.
For MSPs to meet their customers’ cybersecurity challenges, they must adopt strong security technologies and achieve true cyber resilience through best practices and preparation to detect attacks and recover when a breach occurs. Following CSF 2.0 recommendations (and the cyber resilience checklist mentioned earlier) is an excellent way to keep your customers on track and accountable.
