Preparing The Secure Enterprise By Becoming Your Enemy

Organizations face numerous potential threats to their organization, their data and their employees. Many security teams start by building walls to block everything, while using the time to create a critical infrastructure strategy.

Even with all these defenses, hackers are still able to exploit organizations. And oftentimes, they go undetected in your network for an extended period of time.

Wouldn’t it be better to prevent these attacks by observing them within your own environment before a cyber-attacker breaches your defenses and runs an exploit kit? During the Cyber Security Digital Summit, Gus Evangelakos, the Director of Field Engineering for XM Cyber told the audience of security professionals that the best way to understand your enemy is to become your enemy.

See Related: Mid-Year Enterprise Cyber Security Checkpoint

How To Avoid Becoming Your Own Worst Enemy

The act of providing a user with permanent access to a folder seems innocuous. But these are also the permissions that hackers hope to find and install an exploit. When permissions are not set back despite the best intentions, time passes and people forget. People with the knowledge also change.

This knowledge of permissions and exceptions can be placed in a system; however, the system must be designed and maintained. Since networks and systems are dynamic – when the network is changing, it presents challenges for the organization.

Gus discussed how multinational companies use the latest automated attack simulation tools to know in advance what happens if they are breached. Additional topics addressed during this talk include:

• How to identify IT hygiene issues in real time
• Prerequisites for starting Red Teaming and Blue Teaming
• Why Red Teams struggle to keep up and how automation can help
• Assessing the role of simulation and automation in parallel to the evolving of the Red Team

• Creating a strategy that not only simulates the initial exploit, but also addresses the lateral movements of attackers once they’re inside.

Watch the complete presentation Knowing Your Enemy: Attack Simulation In 2020

See Related: Enterprise Cyber Security Trends And Predictions 2020