With the number of cyberattacks on the rise, it may feel like every day you are receiving alerts for potential threats and attacks. With so many attack methods available to cybercriminals and a growing threat landscape, it can be difficult to keep up with the detection, triage, and management of day-to-day cyberthreats.
Fortunately, today’s level of technological advancement has brought with it the ability to automate many security processes, making it easier to keep your organization safe. Let’s take a deep dive into security automation and everything you need to know to make the most of it.
What Is Security Automation?
Security automation is the use of machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI) to automate security processes. This can involve human intervention or not, and results in much faster and efficient processing of security data to help identify and detect threats before they cause a disruption to company operations.
Benefits of Security Automation
Security automation delivers numerous benefits in the fight against cybercrime. These include:
- Streamlined tasks that are traditionally done manually
- Reduced human error
- Increased efficiency
- Faster threat detection
- Faster threat containment and mitigation
- Faster decision making
- Overall improved security posture
Security Automation Tools
There are several effective security automation tools at your disposal. You may choose to use one or more of them, depending on the needs of your organization.
Security information and event management (SIEM)
SIEM systems are designed to gather event and log data that is produced by all digital environments, including networks, systems, devices, applications, and infrastructure. The SIEM system will then analyze the data and provide a streamlined view of your organization’s IT environment and security posture. The system will also ensure you are compliant with local and federal mandates.
Security orchestration, automation, and response (SOAR)
SOAR solutions make it possible to streamline security operations in the areas of threat management, automation of security operations, and incident response. This is a particularly useful solution for larger organizations that have multiple security systems and frequent security events and require the incident response process to be automated.
Vulnerability management
Vulnerability management tools are designed to scan IT resources company-wide and identify vulnerabilities that represent weaknesses in an organization’s security defense. These tools will then categorize the vulnerabilities, prioritize the risks they present, and offer suggested remediation strategies.
Endpoint protection
Endpoint security tools include solutions such as endpoint detection and response (EDR) software, mobile device management software (MDM), and data loss prevention (DLP) software. These tools are able to monitor and manage all of an organization’s endpoints, including devices, Internet of Things (IoT) devices, network connections, applications, and services, with the goal of protecting them from malware attacks and other types of cybersecurity threats.
Security Automation Best Practices
When implementing security automation, there are a series of best practices that can ensure you maximize its potential.
Review and prioritize automation initiatives
Conduct a thorough review of your cybersecurity requirements and identify areas that would most benefit from automation. Prioritize these initiatives, map them out, and assess opportunities for workflow automation to determine which initiatives will give you the greatest ROI.
This level of prioritization will allow you to take a gradual approach to the adoption of automation, starting with the most pressing automation concerns and developing and implementing solutions on a prioritized basis. This will allow you to monitor your progress and make adjustments as needed.
Leverage your human potential
Automation is not a replacement for humans. You will need to find the balance between the use of automation technology and the role your employees play. Train your staff on the use of the automation tools you choose to use, making it clear what functions the tools can provide and where human intervention is required.
Create playbooks to drive consistency
Automation runs on rules and processes that are clearly defined. Ensure there is a playbook that outlines these rules and processes for each automated task. This playbook is a comprehensive document that conveys all relevant information, steps to follow, and eventualities that might occur with the task and how to deal with them.
Use your time wisely
With many manual, repetitive tasks now automated, your staff will have more time to dedicate to higher priority initiatives. Assign your employees high-value tasks that will help connect with customers and better achieve the organizational goals of the company.
Integrate security tools and workflows
Use security orchestration to optimize the complex workflows that result from automation across multicloud environments. This will increase efficiency, improve communication, reduce response time, and eliminate errors.
A cybersecurity partner can help you implement and make the most of security automation. At Platinum Technologies, we offer a full security assessment and security consulting services that will help you determine the priority areas for security automation, so you can make the most of this technology.
