How to Achieve Cyber Resilience

As Cybersecurity Awareness Month Closes, Don't Forget About Cyber Resilience

Since 2004, we have celebrated Cybersecurity Awareness Month every October. ​ While raising awareness about protecting against online risks is important, it’s not enough. Why? If there’s anything we’ve learned in 20 years it’s not a question of if an organization will be successfully attacked, but when. In fact, according to the recent Microsoft Digital Defense Report, ransomware is up YoY, with 90% of successful attacks involving unmanaged devices. Now, more than ever, it’s time to also put the spotlight on maintaining a resilient business, which includes key elements of a robust cyber resilience approach.​ While detection and prevention strategies remain critical, a modern cyber resilience strategy presumes that systems will fail, disruptive attacks will occur, and that your business will need to recover quickly.

The Need for Cyber Resilience ​

There are many reasons why we, as an industry, need to go beyond traditional cybersecurity and build cyber resilience planning and strategies into our overall security and business continuity plans. Today CISOs, CIOs, and CROs increasingly face complex risk management and liability challenges, necessitating greater cost-efficiency and agility in defending, managing, and restoring devices, apps, and network connectivity. Other trends that come into play include:

The evolving sophistication of ransomware: Ransomware is increasingly becoming more difficult to detect as cyber criminals use popular remote IT tools to commit “living off the land” attacks. As a result, both public and private sector organizations are reeling from the disruptions these incidents cause. These types of attacks were absolutely unheard of 10 years ago or more, but have been dominating the cybersecurity landscape over the last 3-5 years.

The spike in software vulnerability exploitation: Fundamental problems in applications and operating systems are continuing to cripple businesses, despite the billions of dollars spent to defend against advanced threats. According to this year’s Verizon DBIR, the exploitation of vulnerabilities almost tripled as an initial access vector in 2023.    

The massive overnight and irreversible shift to remote and hybrid work: From a secure services edge perspective, the pandemic was a game changer. Zero trust quickly went from a to a must-have reality across all industries.

The failed promise of endpoint virtualization: Not long ago it was assumed we were all going to be working through thin clients connecting to virtualized endpoint instances, and there was never going to be anything of interest on the device worth attacking. Yet due to cost, sub-optimal user experience, and other factors, the promise has not been fully realized.  As a result, endpoint security, compliance, and resilience have never been more important.

The Trouble with Security Controls: Because endpoint management, patching, protection, and detection and response remain critically important, it’s also essential to ensure those tools are deployed, compliant, and operational. It’s often assumed that because these are security solutions delivered by highly reputable and well-funded companies, they must all be deployed, compliant, and operating as expected. Our data, however, collected across thousands of organizations and millions of devices over multiple years, consistently shows that they are not deployed or compliant as much as 24% of the time. Today cyber resilience underpins business resilience. If partners, suppliers, or other ecosystem members are not resilient, neither is your organization.

Why Businesses Should Invest in Cyber Resilience Platforms ​

Reasons why companies should prioritize investing in a cyber resilient infrastructure are vast. Several include:

• Reduce Costs of a Data Breach: In a new report, IBM shared that the average cost of a single data breach in 2024 is a record-breaking $4.88 million – 10% higher than last year. By investing in cyber resilience, organizations can save substantial amounts by avoiding recovery costs, downtime, and reputational damage. ​
• Futureproofing Against Emerging Threats: The threat landscape is constantly evolving. ​ A cyber resilience platform adapts to these changes and ensures your endpoint security controls and other security technologies are working and providing the most protection against current and future threats.
  
  
• Minimizing Downtime and Business Disruption: Cyberattacks can lead to significant downtime. This is why companies need to have the tools to ensure systems can quickly recover, minimizing disruption and maintaining business continuity. ​
  
  
• Protecting Reputation and Customer Trust: A successful cyberattack can damage an organization's reputation. ​ Investing in cyber resilience demonstrates a commitment to protecting sensitive data, maintaining robust security measures, and building and maintaining customer trust. ​
  
  
• Addressing Endpoint Vulnerabilities: Research shows 60% of breaches are due to patching and misconfiguration errors. ​ A cyber resilience platform provides automated, risk-based vulnerability, patch, and endpoint management, ensuring critical systems remain secure and updated. ​
  
  
• Regulatory Compliance: Many industries have stringent regulatory requirements regarding data protection and cybersecurity. ​ A cyber resilience infrastructure helps organizations meet these compliance requirements by providing robust security measures. ​

Key Elements of a Cyber Resilience Platform ​

Cyber resilience platforms address the critical gaps in vulnerability, protection, and recovery that leave organizations exposed to disruptive breaches, ransomware attacks, IT outages or other disruptions. ​ By ensuring that endpoints are reliably patched and remediated, and that endpoint security applications are continuously operational, a cyber resilience platform can mitigate exposure to both known and zero-day vulnerabilities and quickly fix complexity-driven incidents. ​This comprehensive approach ensures that when cyber or other disruptive events occur, endpoints can be remotely and reliably recovered at scale. ​

To stay operational when the unexpected happens, whether it is due to a cyberattack or an IT outage, organizations must prioritize building a comprehensive cyber resilience approach that includes the following elements:

1. Endpoint Resilience: Ensure endpoints are secure, visible, and compliant. ​Leverage tools that provide remote visibility and control, as well as remote and automated repair and rehydration for PC fleets, applications, and security controls. ​Endpoints aren’t going away – they are the tether that binds the workforce to the enterprise, these cannot be overlooked.
   
   
2. Application Resilience: Applications must be resilient against vulnerabilities and threats. ​Ensure operating systems and critical security controls are always up to date and fully operational. ​Automated, risk-based vulnerability, patch, and endpoint management capabilities are essential for maintaining application resilience. ​
   
   
3. Access Resilience: Secure access is a critical component of cyber resilience. ​ Implement secure network access solutions that not only ensure optimized connectivity, but also a safe and compliant user experience.

Conclusion

Investing in cyber resilience is essential in today's digital landscape.​ By providing comprehensive protection, minimizing downtime, and proactively managing risks, a cyber resilience infrastructure helps organizations stay ahead of evolving threats and in maintaining business continuity. ​In an era of increasingly sophisticated cyberattacks, a robust cyber resilience platform is crucial for protecting sensitive data and systems, maintaining customer trust, and ensuring long-term business success. ​