Cybersecurity remains a serious issue for many businesses and organizations, and likely a top organizational priority across the board for 2020. Automation in cybersecurity can be helpful to allow businesses of all sizes to monitor network activity.
Cybersecurity automation lets you gather data with sophisticated analysis tools and then have access to system logs to identify potential intrusions or hacking attempts, perhaps before they’re successful.
Automation in cybersecurity can have a lot of advantages and save time and money, although the concept can be intimidating at first.
The following are things to know and areas to consider implementing automation into your cybersecurity plan this year.
IPAM and DNS Automation
Recently, Efficient IP released an overview detailing the price breakdown in their services compared to Infoblox, and they also shed some general light on the importance of automation of DNS-DHCP-IPAM security. Known as DDI, when you automate this area of your cybersecurity, you’re strengthening the entire foundation of your network infrastructure.
In comparing Infoblox vs. EfficientIP, in general, the use of an integrated DDI automation solution led to an ROI of up to 193%, and productivity was increased by 400% on average.
Zero Trust Architecture
The Zero Trust architecture model is one of the most relevant in cybersecurity right now. It’s important because it takes into account the validity of internal threats and things that happen within a security perimeter. Before the implementation of Zero Trust architecture, anything that happened within the security perimeter was seen as inherently safe and trusted.
Zero Trust takes all that out of the picture and makes sure that everything is vetted whether it’s coming in or out of the organization’s network.
Automation is one of the most important aspects of the implementation of a Zero Trust architecture.
Zero Trust environments require complete use of security automation response tools. Tasks are automated through workflows, and things like behavioral analysis tools are used.
Along with this comes the importance of visibility and analytics, which are part of automation. With the use of automation as well as analytics platforms, security teams can see what’s happening in real-time.
Security Orchestration Automation and Response
Gartner coined the term Security Orchestration Automation and Response in 2017. This refers to solutions that make your security operations more efficient, but they don’t require the use of your human capital for lower-level tasks.
There are three main areas of cybersecurity that are optimized with this. As the name would imply these are security orchestration, automation, and response.
The goal of this type of automation is to collect data from different sources so it can be analyzed. It uses AI and machine learning tools to figure out new threats and emerging threats as well.
What to Remember with Automation
There are so many ways to automate cybersecurity, and those options are going to keep growing, but there are still best-practices to keep in mind on the management side as well. If you’re an IT leader and you’re integrating new automation into your organization, remember that automation doesn’t mean that you’re hands-off.
Automation only works well with proper human oversight.
Cybersecurity is a serious issue, and automation can make it easier, but there needs to be a sense of control over every process taking place.
This could be as simple as setting up a schedule to regularly review logs and reports. You’re freed up so that you don’t have to deal with most tasks manually, but there’s still a tight sense of control over everything.
When you are automating cybersecurity, you also have to pay close attention to the third parties you’re going to work with in doing so.
When you’re bringing in more third-party applications, then you’re giving up control, and you could actually be making yourself more vulnerable. You need to go over vendors’ security policies and only work with reputable companies.
Also, it’s better to have fewer, more comprehensive solutions in place.
Be careful with the level of access you give internally to automated solutions because the more systems an automated application can access, the more opportunities exist for hackers.
Finally, even the best automation tools can have disastrous effects if there aren’t adequate boundaries in place.
Automation is growing in popularity in the cybersecurity world, and it’s something that soon will become unavoidable but organizations need to be prepared for this. Don’t assume automation can make up for an overall weak cybersecurity strategy or a lack of human oversight because it can’t despite its many benefits.
