3 Specific Technologies To Improve a Business’s Cybersecurity Posture

3 Specific Technologies To Improve a Business’s Cybersecurity Posture

Right now, businesses face the most complex and dangerous cyber threat landscape imaginable — and it’s getting worse all the time. And that makes cybersecurity measures critically important. With the right defensive strategies and technologies deployed in the right places, businesses can keep their data and systems safe from attack. But to do so, they must first understand which technologies can contribute to their security in a meaningful way. To help them to do that, here are three specific technologies that businesses can deploy to improve their cybersecurity posture immediately.

SSO and Hardware Security Keys

The first place that businesses should start if they wish to improve their cybersecurity posture is with their employees. More specifically, how those employees access company systems and data. This is because phishing is now the weapon of choice that cybercriminals now use to gain unauthorized access to protected business systems.

They use such attacks to steal login credentials from employees that fall for their deception. And once inside a business network, it’s all but impossible to contain the damage. Therefore, businesses must improve their access controls and harden their credentials. Doing so requires the adoption of two related key technologies — single sign-on (SSO) systems, and hardware security keys.

The former centralizes access management in a way that allows for better control over who’s granted access to business data, and the latter removes passwords as the primary means of authentication. In this way, businesses can maintain better data access transparency and can all but eliminate stolen credentials as a cybersecurity threat.

Endpoint Management and Monitoring

Unfortunately, employee cybersecurity threats aren’t always accidental. In fact, a full 14% of all business cybersecurity incidents stem from the actions of malicious insiders. That makes it critical for businesses to maintain strict control and surveillance over employee-facing endpoints, both to discourage destructive acts and to spot them if they occur anyway.

Two main technology solutions can satisfy those needs. The first is comprehensive endpoint management software. Once deployed, it can monitor systems for unauthorized activity and even respond to threats once detected. It’s an effective way to control how employees use business-owned technology as well as to protect that technology from threats both internal and external.

The second technology solution is employee monitoring software. It gives a business the ability to conduct meaningful oversight into what employees are doing as they work. It can, for example, alert managers to unauthorized website or software usage. And, it can enable them to take a look at employee activity in real-time if the need arises. Both make it possible for the business to stop an insider threat in its tracks by intervening before the situation can escalate.

AI-Powered Network Threat Detection and Response

Whereas the previous technologies work to prevent threats before they become a serious problem, the final technology that businesses can use to improve their cybersecurity posture works toward threat mitigation. AI-powered network threat detection and response uses large data sets to spot network traffic patterns that indicate an attack in progress. It’s a way of ferreting out malicious software and unauthorized activity within a business network.

With such a system in operation, businesses have a means of catching any cyber threats that managed to avoid their defenses. It’s something of an insurance policy — and a valuable one. Through rapid detection of threats and pre-arranged mitigation responses, businesses can short-circuit an ongoing cyberattack by isolating affected systems long before the malicious actor can do meaningful damage.

As a technology, AI-powered network threat detection and response systems are seen as killer apps in cybersecurity circles. They simultaneously acknowledge that defensive measures can never be perfect and that lightning-quick mitigation efforts are the best means of limiting the fallout of a cyberattack.

Ready For Anything

By equipping themselves with the key technologies identified above, businesses can drastically improve their odds of avoiding or blunting a cyber attack. And while the nature of the threat means there may never be a foolproof defense available, these overlapping technologies come close. In an age where threats continue to multiply and businesses have much to protect — close may very well be more than good enough.