The Importance of Security Operations

Roderick De Guzman - 8th May 2017

Organizations all over the world over are facing unprecedented risks from cyber-attack. Whether a basic phishing attempt or more sophisticated malware, attackers have become ever more resourceful and persistent in their efforts to disrupt individuals, organizations, and governments.

May 2017 saw security experts scrambling to contain the fallout from a major global ransomware attack that affected some of the world’s largest institutions and government agencies, including the National Health Service, FedEx and the Russian Interior Ministry.

Yet a common misconception is that only the largest of enterprises are targeted by hackers, in fact increasingly hackers are seeking a quick profit by taking aim at medium and smaller sized companies that are more vulnerable to attack.

Ransomware and methods originally developed for attacking larger enterprises with more sophisticated defences are being redeployed and used on those organizations a rung down on the ladder. Large enough to hold sensitive data and run complex IT systems but perhaps without the economies of scale to invest in sophisticated defences. Medium-sized enterprises are also likely to be large enough to afford a sizeable ransom.

Another major factor in the targeting of medium sized enterprises is that they may be less informed than larger organizations. As important as good virus and malware protection is, the best defence starts with keeping the organization and every individual within it, informed of the risks and given the tools to react to security threats proactively. How informed is your organization?

How an organization and its security teams share knowledge, identify, and then act on pertinent intelligence can make the difference between a business being crippled or carrying on business as usual.

At Engage ESM we take our customers’ security very seriously, therefore we are bringing new Security Operations functionality in July with the Jakarta release of ServiceNow. In addition to more 3rd Party integrations, this release includes the launch of a new application built into Security Operations, called Trusted Security Circles. These allow organizations to proactively and securely share threat intelligence in near real-time with suppliers, partners and peers (read our technical insight into Jakarta here).

This release is exciting for existing and prospective ServiceNow users and our consultants cannot wait to begin implementing the new Security Operations functionality with customers. As a Gold Services ServiceNow partner, Engage ESM is ideally placed to help. To learn more about this release and to organize a demonstration, please get in touch here.