The enterprise security administrators used to face many roadblocks when it comes to ensuring cybersecurity, which is more or less the same in the case of all. Even if they are administering systems and networks of various sizes in different industries, security threats exist for every organization of all sizes. The basic security practices are well known to all. The local governments also regulate cybersecurity models to mature your cyber security practices to overcome the security challenges.
Knowing which cybersecurity framework is right for you is a challenge. It is also essential to know what specific regulations in your industry are related to cyber security best practices. This article will discuss the top models in cybersecurity best practices that organizations can follow globally. Everyone needs to develop mature programs to comply with cyber security needs.
What is meant by maturity in cybersecurity programs?
Everyone wants to achieve a mature cybersecurity program. Even though attaining complete maturity is merely impossible in this ever-changing field of cybersecurity, you can adopt many tools and processes to be aligned with the people’s efforts to mitigate the security risks. A fully matured cybersecurity program demands buy-in from the leadership and should also have set goals to achieve across the organizations. All the parties and departments needed to wholeheartedly follow the cyber security best practices to achieve this needed maturity. There are always risks and challenges that will adversely affect the cybersecurity programs; however, agreed-upon plans and actionable insights must be in place. The vendors and partners also need to agree on a matured cybersecurity program.
These cybersecurity programs boil down to a common cybersecurity model, which is counted as a matured approach. These models must also outline a proper order where different steps can be adopted at each program maturity level step-by-step. Along with adopting the cyber security best practices, it is also important to ensure a secured database with the proper administration. RemoteDBA.com can be your ideal partner in ensuring a secured DB and foolproof administration of the same.
Top 2 cybersecurity frameworks
- NIST Framework
NIST or National Institute of Standards and Technology framework is an advanced cybersecurity model successfully used by organizations in the United States of America. This model refers to establishing an organization’s tolerance to cyber security threats to increase their program maturity based on the adopted model. Furthermore, the NIST framework will also account for the changing threats in cybersecurity and advise the followers to constantly readjust their techniques and practices to continuously adopt remediation measures in an ongoing cyber threat environment.
Five phases are considered to be most critical in the NIST cybersecurity model. It would be best if you got through these to reach a mature program.
Phase #1: Identifying
At this phase, the organizations may establish an enterprise-wide cybersecurity model, which includes a thorough understanding of the existing risks in the system, the nature of sensitive items in the organization, and what types of business operations need to be protected from possible cybersecurity threats.
Phase #2: Protecting
At this next step of NIST, you need to define and organize the steps to safeguard the critical areas identified at phase #1 and plan your security programs accordingly.
Phase #3: Detection
This is one phase that most organizations tend to dive directly into regarding cybersecurity administration, including establishing effective cybersecurity monitoring tools for identifying the risks. However, this needed to be done very carefully after the above two phases to be precise and comprehensive threat detection.
Phase #4: Responding
The next step is to increase the program maturity as per the established cybersecurity model of NIST, which will help tackle organizational security threats. This approach is more than simply patching the network and should ensure proper containment of all the adverse impacts of malicious activities.
Phase #5: Recovering
Along with the above steps, recovery is also a crucial process in the program maturity, which will help the management processes schedule recovery time and reflect on any damages, allowing program improvement and add-on protection to the network.
NIST model acknowledges all the existing practices organizations tend to follow in protecting their technology and information infrastructure. Instead of starting anything fresh, it will guide the organizations to fine-tune their existing systems and ensure a foolproof and standardized cybersecurity model.
- ISO 27000
It is an international standard established by the Organization for Standardization (ISO). This consists of the top practices in information security management. ISO 27000 is a popular model among European Union organizations, focusing largely on three major aspects of cybersecurity management: processes, people, and technology. This program recommendation is further broken down into the below critical areas in cyber security management. As a result, the managers will ensure the security best practices for attaining maturity.
- Risk assessment of the existing security system.
- Designing customized cyber security policy.
- Asset management.
- Human-centered security management.
- Ensuring environmental and physical security.
- Operations management and communications-based security.
- Access control systems.
- Acquisition of information systems.
- Development and maintenance-based security.
- Business continuity management.
- Incident management, etc.
As in the case of the NIST program, ISO 27000 also provides organizations of all kinds with the top cybersecurity practices, including higher-level protections and optimum security standards. In addition, ISO 27000 also includes effective operational and physical safety management, which is further broken down into different ISO 27000 series components to get a more specific design for an unrelenting cybersecurity model.
Along with these, it may also be ideal to consider the CIS 20 standard for cyber security best practices to optimize your program. The US defense industry mostly uses this, and there is a series of about twenty contents considered the most critical for protecting the organizational network from cyberattacks. Choosing a cyber security model is up to the discretion of the security administrators based on the nature of the business and the type of data and users involved in the system.
