All You Need To Know About Technology To Transform Your Data Breach Response Capability
One of the key factors in an effective data security strategy is using the right tools to detect data breaches. These help to save time and effort used by your data protection team – making your data operation more efficient and reducing costs.
The best data breach protection tools will monitor the different points at which breaches may occur. They will help you understand what happened and how, as well as what data has been compromised. These are crucial factors to know when developing a data breach response.
What types of data protection tools should your organization be using? What job do they do, and how do they fit into your data protection strategy?
Reducing the heavy lifting of data breach detection
Data breach detection tools are designed to make the work of identifying data breaches more efficient and effective. They do this by automating data protection procedures such as data discovery, classification, and remediation.
To enable this to happen, it’s crucial that you know which data is most sensitive and presents the highest risk to your business – which is one reason a data breach risk assessment is critical. With the knowledge accrued from a risk assessment, you can select the data breach detection tools that will make a substantial difference to your organization’s data security strategy.
What types of data breach detection tools does your organization need?
Don’t mistake tools like antivirus software and intrusion detection for data breach detection tools. Antivirus software checks for programs like malware, while intrusion detection alerts you to possible unauthorized access attempts.
Data breach detection tools provide automated, real-time monitoring of your network, alerting you to an actual breach and providing information about it that helps you to take the correct remedial action faster. The type of data breach detection tools that your organization needs depends on the type of data you have.
Here are four types of data breach detection tools that will help to deliver maximum security protection to your IT network and the data you hold and use.
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SIEM (Security Information and Event Management)
A SIEM logs all security events and is often required to comply with data regulations. Tools such as firewalls don’t detect and provide extensive information about advanced persistent attacks and zero-day attacks. A SIEM fills this gap. The best SIEM tools can halt the data breaches they detect.
However, it’s not an easy task to find the best SIEM tool. It requires planning and management of expectations and processes to realize the full benefits of a SIEM, which is why many organizations opt for managed IT services to support this functionality.
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EDR (Endpoint Detection and Response)
Endpoints are the most vulnerable part of a network – it’s where access is most easily hacked.
The best EDR can stop attacks before they breach your systems and access your data. With an EDR in place, antivirus software is not needed – and this helps to manage your technology more efficiently by reducing the products which need to be managed. This also reduces cost.
EDR conducts several key functions, including performing threat hunting across all endpoints, analysis of the causes behind a threat, and taking action when a potential or actual security incident is detected. Like a SIEM, the most successful EDR is often outsourced to leverage specific experience and expertise.
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Patch management
As technology evolves and hacking strategies become more sophisticated, the software is continually updated to improve network and program security. The result is software updates, or patches, which fix vulnerabilities and bugs. If these patches are not made in a timely fashion, they leave your data vulnerable to leakage or cyberattack – and often patches are made manually and across disconnected systems.
Outsourcing patch management relieves the stress on your IT team. A managed IT service will continually scan for missing patches, and then update your system accordingly, as well as deliver a report on the work that has been done across your systems, computers, servers, and detached devices.
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Vulnerability management
It’s crucial to protect all your digital assets. This includes servers, computers, laptops, mobile devices, cloud storage, websites, and so on. These assets change constantly, so a once-per-year snapshot approach to asset validation and vulnerability status is no longer sufficient.
Vulnerabilities across your assets change daily – and this gives cybercriminals all the opportunity they need to launch an attack. Therefore, automated continuous scanning is essential. This will enable security specialists to immediately identify asset vulnerability risks, and then take action to remediate these risks.
Three crucial elements of any data breach detection tool
So, we’ve discussed four types of breach detection tools – the question now is, how do you know which type is best for you? In our experience, there are three elements that you must look for when considering new data breach detection tools:
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Comprehensive insight and an easy-to-understand format
It’s crucial that your breach tools provide a comprehensive insight into your network and asset infrastructure. You’ll want to know the location of your data and your data footprint. This information should be presented in a format that is easy to understand. Tools that include both text and visual reporting are the best option.
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Accurate scanning capability
At the heart of data, breach detection is a tool’s ability to scan continuously and accurately. It must be able to locate all sensitive data, wherever it is being stored or used, and it must be able to do this quickly, in real-time, and automatically.
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Automated processes
Finally, you’ll get the most out of detection tools when they automate repetitive and time-consuming processes. This will free your team to do other work, save time, and reduce human error rates.
Four of the best data breach detection tools on the market today
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SolarWinds Security Event Manager
SolarWinds Security Event Manager (SEM) is a top-notch SEIM tool. It works in real-time to collect and correlate important events on your systems, and take automated action against threats as they occur.
A monitor display shows events as they happen, and the user can filter these events to focus on what he or she wishes to view. SEM data can be viewed in tabulated or chart formats, making it easy and user-friendly. It also shows if you are in breach of regulatory compliance issues.
It has an uncanny ability to detect suspicious behaviors through pattern matching, and it can be fired up to start right out of the box – or configured to your specific requirements.
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Splunk Enterprise Security
Featuring a range of tools to enhance your security capability, Splunk Enterprise Software is fully automated to deploy incidence response tools that investigate threats and suspicious activity. It can be installed locally or via SaaS.
It is fully customizable to provide real-time insight into suspicious activity and cyber threats, identifying notable events and prioritizing them for tracking, management, and action. You can view monitoring via pre-defined dashboards, and you can create monitoring controls to help make informed decisions.
Splunk Enterprise Security is a great all-around tool that will help you make timely data security decisions more accurately.
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SpyCloud
SpyCloud has been designed to help prevent account takeover and does a remarkable job. Its proactive solutions address this threat. Its early warning feature sends alerts as soon as assets are compromised, and its library of recovered breach assets is used actively to update its automated and proactive solutions.
This tool also allows you to monitor third-party and supply chain breaches, protects your employees, and its rapid password reset facility enables you to reset stolen passwords before hackers can use them.
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Kount
Designed to protect an organization from online fraud, Kount’s tools include online fraud monitoring, fraud protection for credit card payment gateways, login protection, and AI and machine learning that provides insights into an organization’s performance.
Kount learns about your systems and users with advanced AI and machine learning, building knowledge to aid it in the detection of anomalies and suspicious behavior. It understands credit risk and provides information that includes transaction details and locations of transactions in customizable reports, helping you to identify risks and deliver automated responses. Overall, a great tool for e-commerce organizations.
The bottom line
In today’s digital world, your organization cannot rely on outdated methods to protect its data. It’s crucial to employ the most sophisticated strategies and data breach detection tools within your budget. Getting the best tools can be a minefield, but it is one that we are used to navigating with our clients.
To learn about the difference that we can make to your data security, contact Millennium Tech today.