Cybersecurity has become a paramount concern for organizations of all sizes and industries. Amid the increasing number of cyber threats, it is critical for businesses to establish resilient cybersecurity programs to safeguard their sensitive data, intellectual property, and digital infrastructure from malicious entities.

A comprehensive cybersecurity program should include a risk assessment to specify potential threats, vulnerabilities, and risks to the organization's digital assets. By evaluating these risks, you can prioritize them accordingly. This approach enables the development of risk management strategies to effectively mitigate or eliminate identified risks.

Elements of Cybersecurity Program

Security Policies and Procedures:

Developing and implementing cybersecurity policies and procedures is essential for establishing clear guidelines and standards for security practices within your organization. These policies ought to encompass various areas, including acceptable use, access controls, data handling, incident response, and employee training. This ensures that all members of the organization understand their roles and responsibilities in upholding cybersecurity standards.

Access Control:

Access control mechanisms are crucial for regulating and monitoring access to an organization's sensitive data, systems, and resources. Implementing technologies such as multi-factor authentication (MFA), role-based access controls (RBAC), and privileged access management (PAM) can help stop unauthorized access and restrict potential damage caused by insider threats.

Network Security:

Network security solutions, including firewalls, intrusion detection and prevention systems (IDPS), and secure gateways, are vital components for safeguarding an organization's network infrastructure against unauthorized access and cyber-attacks. Segmenting the network and deploying security controls at various points can help isolate critical assets and prevent lateral movement by attackers.

Endpoint Security:

Securing endpoint devices like desktops, laptops, and mobile devices is crucial in thwarting malware infections and data breaches. Endpoint protection solutions, which encompass antivirus software, endpoint detection and response (EDR) tools, and mobile device management (MDM) solutions, play an important role in effectively identifying and addressing threats on endpoint devices.

Data Protection:

Encrypting sensitive data both during transmission and while at rest is vital to thwart unauthorized access and data exfiltration. Implementing data loss prevention (DLP) solutions facilitates monitoring and management of sensitive data movement within the organization, thus mitigating the risks linked with data breaches and ensuring adherence to regulatory requirements.

Incident Response and Management:

Creating an incident response plan that delineates protocols for detecting, addressing, and recuperating from cybersecurity incidents is crucial in mitigating the repercussions of breaches on your organization. Conducting regular incident response drills and simulations can help test the effectiveness of your plan and ensure that your team is prepared to react effectively to cyber threats.

Security Awareness Training:

Providing regular cybersecurity awareness training and education to employees is crucial for promoting a culture of security within your organization. Training sessions should encompass subjects like identifying phishing attempts, adhering to security protocols, and promptly reporting any suspicious activity. This empowers employees to understand their responsibility in safeguarding your organization against cyber threats.

A comprehensive cybersecurity program encompasses a range of essential elements that work together to protect an organization's digital assets from cyber threats. For more information, contact Centex Technologies at Killeen (254) 213 – 4740, Dallas (972) 375 – 9654, Atlanta (404) 994 – 5074, and Austin (512) 956 – 5454.

User and Entity Behavior Analytics (UEBA) is a cybersecurity solution that leverages advanced analytics, machine learning, and data science to monitor, detect, and respond to abnormal behaviors of users and entities (such as devices and applications) within an organization's network. It's a proactive approach that goes beyond traditional signature-based threat detection methods, focusing on behavior patterns instead.

User and Entity Behavior Analytics (UEBA) has emerged as a potent weapon in the arsenal of enterprise cybersecurity. UEBA operates on the fundamental premise that the behavior of both users and entities provides crucial insights into an organization's cybersecurity. By continuously analyzing this behavior, UEBA identifies anomalies, suspicious activities, and potential security threats.

The Key Components of UEBA

UEBA integrates several vital components to deliver its functionality:

Data Collection

UEBA platforms gather data from various sources, including logs, network traffic, and endpoints. This data may include user logins, file access, application usage, and system events.

Data Analysis

Advanced analytics and machine learning algorithms are used to process and analyze this data. UEBA systems develop baseline profiles of normal behavior for users and entities, which serve as reference points for identifying deviations.

Anomaly Detection

The system detects deviations from established baselines. These deviations can be deviations in the frequency, timing, location, and nature of activities.

Alerting and Reporting

When anomalies are detected, UEBA generates alerts and reports, which are sent to security teams for investigation and response. The system can provide context and supporting data to assist in the investigative process.

Benefits of UEBA

UEBA brings several significant benefits to the table for enterprise cybersecurity:

Early Threat Detection

UEBA excels in identifying threats early in their lifecycle, often before they can cause significant damage. By detecting subtle changes in user and entity behavior, it can uncover sophisticated, low-and-slow attacks.

Insider Threat Detection

UEBA is particularly adept at identifying insider threats—those coming from within an organization. It can detect unusual activities by employees or entities, helping organizations to prevent data breaches and IP theft.

Reduced False Positives

Traditional security solutions often generate false positives, inundating security teams with alerts. UEBA, with its behavior-driven approach, minimizes false positives, enabling security teams to focus on real threats.

Security Posture Improvement

By proactively identifying security gaps and vulnerabilities, UEBA helps organizations to continually enhance their security posture. This adaptability is invaluable in the ever-changing landscape of cybersecurity.

Application Of UEBA In Cybersecurity:

1. Insider Threat Detection: Identifying employees or entities engaged in malicious activities or data theft.
2. Account Compromise Detection: Detecting unauthorized access to user accounts or applications.
3. Data Exfiltration Prevention: Identifying and stopping data exfiltration attempts in real-time.
4. Privileged User Monitoring: Tracking the activities of privileged users to ensure they are not misusing their access.
5. Credential Misuse Detection: Detecting credential sharing, weak password usage, and other misuse.
6. Compliance and Data Protection: Ensuring compliance with data protection regulations and privacy standards.
7. Incident Response: Assisting security teams in rapidly responding to threats and incidents.

Implementation of UEBA

To effectively implement UEBA, organizations should follow these best practices:

1. Data Source Integration: Ensure integration with critical data sources such as Active Directory, SIEM logs, and endpoint security solutions.
2. Continuous Monitoring: Implement real-time monitoring and analysis to detect threats as they occur.
3. Customization: Tailor the UEBA solution to your organization's specific needs and security policies.
4. User Training: Educate users and employees about the importance of security and their role in maintaining a secure environment.
5. Threat Intelligence Integration: Incorporate threat intelligence feeds to enhance threat detection capabilities.
6. Scalability: Choose a solution that can scale with the organization's growth and evolving security needs.

User and Entity Behavior Analytics (UEBA) represents a transformative approach to cybersecurity that focuses on behavior patterns rather than static signatures. By integrating UEBA into their security strategy, organizations can significantly improve their ability to detect, respond to, and mitigate cyber threats in real-time. For more information on enterprise cybersecurity solutions, Centex Technologies at Killeen (254) 213 – 4740, Dallas (972) 375 – 9654, Atlanta (404) 994 – 5074, and Austin (512) 956 – 5454.

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A firewall acts as the first layer of security against cyberattacks. It is a perimeter security device that is configured to monitor & analyze incoming and outgoing traffic. It either allows or blocks data packets based on the network configuration settings.

Although a firewall is an essential component of cyber security structure for any network, some cyberattacks manage to bypass the firewall and penetrate the network.

So how do hackers succeed in bypassing a firewall?

Let’s first understand how a firewall work.

To begin with, a firewall can be in the form of physical hardware or a configured software that runs on endpoint workstations or servers connected to a network.

1. Firewall has pre-configured rules that are used to differentiate malicious traffic from regular traffic.
2. The configuration rules may include the source of traffic, destination, content of data, permission requirements, etc.
3. All incoming or outgoing traffic is analyzed against the configuration rules.
4. The traffic adhering to set rules is allowed to pass through, while the traffic contradicting the configuration rules is blocked.

Now let’s understand what techniques hackers use to bypass a firewall.

1. Exploiting Older Versions: This method is particularly used to bypass older version firewalls that lack “deep packet inspection” or DPI features. DPI enables the firewall to monitor & analyze the incoming & outgoing data packets for malicious code. However, the lack of DPI features reduces the capability of a firewall to detect & block malicious traffic. Threat actors take advantage of this reduced capability & penetrate the firewall by sending phishing emails with a link to inject malicious code into the system.
2. IoT Devices: Large number of IoT devices connected to a network and difficulty in updating them make IoT devices highly vulnerable. This problem is enhanced by UPnP (Universal Plug and Play) feature of IoT devices that enables them to communicate freely with each other. Threat actors take advantage of the automated protocol implemented by IoT devices which allows them to bypass the firewall & connect to the router. Once the threat actors bypass the firewall, they use this path to deliver malware to the router & other devices connected to the WiFi.
3. Exploiting Outgoing Traffic: If a firewall is configured to monitor incoming traffic only, the threat actors can steal data & send it to their own server unnoticed. Some organizations use selective configuration & set rules that allow only outgoing traffic only via HTTP, HTTPS, & DNS protocols. This limits the problem but doesn’t act as a complete solution. The threat actors can still use DNS to move any data across the firewall, as the data moving out via DNS is not monitored or blocked.
4. Social Engineering Attacks: In a social engineering attack, hackers do not try to bypass the firewall. Instead, they gain legitimate access by posing as an allowed user to trick the employees. The hackers may pose as a system admin, a team member, or an IT support executive to gain remote access to the system and get past the firewall. This can be prevented by enabling multi-factor authentication to verify the identity of the person requesting access.
5. SQL Injection Attacks: Traditional firewalls such as network firewall, generally operates at the network, transport, & session layers. This keeps the application layer unmonitored & exposed to attacks that are designed to target the application layer, such as SQL Injection attacks. Attackers take advantage of application vulnerabilities to inject malicious code into the system & gain access to data such as login credentials, financial details, etc.
6. Misconfiguration: A misconfigured firewall offers an easy passage to hackers. This may happen when an organization makes infrastructure changes or sets highly permissive firewall rules. This lowers the capability of the firewall to identify and block malicious traffic.

To know more about cyber security solutions and how to protect your network from cyberattacks, contact Centex Technologies. You can contact Centex Technologies at Killeen (254) 213 - 4740, Dallas (972) 375 - 9654, Atlanta (404) 994 - 5074, and Austin (512) 956 – 5454.

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Despite deploying security precautions to protect their networks from cyberattacks, numerous firms have experienced network breaches. Nowadays, threat actors use complex and sophisticated tactics to infiltrate a network, the impact of which may not be mitigated by traditional methods. The proactive procedure of checking the network for any hostile activity is referred to as cyber threat hunting.

Cyber threat hunting and cyber threat intelligence

Continuously monitoring the network for suspicious activity and gaps in the organization's ecosystem is required for cyber threat hunting. By analyzing previous data from a variety of sources, cyber threat hunting techniques keep a watch for potential new risks. Threat hunting techniques can discover, identify, and fix security flaws, vulnerabilities, and malicious behavior that normal security measures frequently fail to detect.

How to start hunting threats inside the Cyber or IT infrastructure?

Proactive preparation is the key to success in cyber security operations. It is critical to establish a solid foundation before beginning to develop the cyber threat hunting program.

A business is advised to take the following actions

• Plan a cyber-threat hunting program - To begin cyber threat hunting, map the security process to any existing security model, such as the MITRE ATT&CK architecture. It is also recommended that the security posture be assessed to see how vulnerable the organization is to hazards and attacks.
• Maturing the threat hunting program - After determining the level of cyber maturity, the next step is to decide whether the cyber threat hunting process should be carried out internally, externally, or a combination of both.
• Identifying and addressing gaps in tool and technology implementation -  Analyze the current tools and determine what is required for successful threat hunting and the effectiveness of preventative technology.
• Identifying and addressing security personnel training gaps - Threat detection necessitates the skills of an expert. If the organization lacks experienced internal specialists, it is recommended to use a third-party source.
• Adoption of a cyber-threat hunting strategy - Any firm must have a solid cyber threat hunting strategy which can help in mitigating the impact of cyberattacks on its infrastructure.

What kind of professionals can perform active cyber threat hunting?

Cyber threat hunting calls for knowledge of all the systems and data in use at the firm. This has to be combined with exquisite expertize in threat intelligence analysis, reverse engineering and malware analysis. Threat hunters must also be excellent communicators who can present their results and contribute to the business case for sustained threat hunting resources. It is preferable to put together a team of curious, analytical issue resolvers who have these talents and are motivated to further improve them. The willingness to keep learning is another essential quality of effective cyber threat hunters. Cyber threats are continuously changing, thus threat hunters must be dedicated to keeping their knowledge current by following researchers, participating in online groups, and attending industry forums, which enables them to learn about new strategies.

Advanced next-generation technology and human professionals work in unison to create an effective threat hunting process. To find any potential risks and harmful activity, the threat hunters need investigation tools and other inputs. These tools make it possible for threat hunters to find and examine the risks. For example, XDR (Extended Detection and Response) collects all the signals from the IT ecosystem and EDR (Endpoint Detection and Response) delivers inputs from the endpoint solution. These tools aid in the earlier identification of any possible threats.

Cyber threat hunters should be aware of the automated procedures, alarms, and behavior analyses that have already been run on the data to avoid duplicating work. Threat hunting may go down a lot of rabbit holes, therefore it demands agility. However, there should be a structured framework in place to direct the hunt and allow for any necessary withdrawal from the rabbit holes.

Contact Centex Technologies for more information on cyber threat hunting. You can contact Centex Technologies at Killeen (254) 213 - 4740, Dallas (972) 375 - 9654, Atlanta (404) 994 - 5074, and Austin (512) 956 – 5454.

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A growing number of companies are implementing rules that assure greater compliance with government requirements and safe storage of critical company data. Loss of business data may not only result in penalties but also cause loss of reputation, customer trust, & finances.

Following are the most common methods used by businesses to protect corporate communications from cyberattacks:

• PII (Personally Identifiable Information) data usage and security: A company's corporate data usage policy should explicitly define what constitutes acceptable use of the data. The PII data policies must evidently state whether corporate and/or personal use is permitted, and if yes, then what will be the scope of it. If employees are granted personal use, steps should be taken to outline what types of correspondence will be considered unacceptable or offensive.

• Installing DLP (Data Loss Prevention) tools to prevent unauthorized transmission of company secrets: Up to 90% of a company's intellectual capital now exists in digital form. It has been estimated that the loss of critical business information via cybersecurity incidents to more than USD 24 Billion per year. It's vital that every employee understands the critical seriousness of transmitting company data. Hence, a deploying DLP solution is beneficial to not just detecting but also preventing the loss of critical and sensitive data via business communications.

• Complying with business-specific standards and government regulations: The HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) and the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act regulate data privacy. The acts detail specific measures that regulated companies must take to adequately protect customer data. The Securities and Exchange Commission requires organizations to comply with certain privacy and auditing standards, security controls, and mechanisms.

• Monitoring employees’ behaviors and usage of internet and corporate devices: The company is eventually responsible for any employee’s misuse of corporate devices, assets, and data. Hence it is required to responsibly monitor, review and inspect its employees' communications. The allowed use and acceptable behavior should be articulated in a company’s communications policy, and each employee should be required to sign an agreement for the same.

• Creating a Cybersecurity program and install security tools to strengthen the security posture: Integrations with applications that can scan messages and attachments are essential. Installation of SOC (Security Operations Center) along with the requisite software solutions is of utmost importance to strengthen the security posture of the organization.

• Categorizing different types of information and their scope of usage: Filters should be established to look for potentially offensive or defamatory business correspondence. All outbound data transmission should be scanned for project names and other keywords that might indicate that confidential content may be about to leave the organization. Alerts that are flagged by the content filtering tools should be blocked outright or stripped off their attachments.

• Implementing PoLP (Principle of Least Privilege): Within the company, a completely secure-communications strategy should establish graduated degrees of privilege for users. IT administrators should leverage this categorization to apply contextual logic to groups of content. For example, different types of sensitive corporate content should demand different levels of clearance to be approved for data and information distribution.

• Deploying an appropriate encryption scheme to protect corporate email data: To safeguard every digital material that is approved for transmission beyond a specific sensitivity threshold, strict criteria should be implemented. Unless linked via a VPN, personnel data related to HR, blueprints, contract agreements, business strategies, and other sensitive information should not be transmitted between individuals in remote locations.

• Implementing using VPNs (Virtual Private Networks) to facilitate remote working: VPN Policies can be used to establish trusted communication channels between distributed sets of users that eliminate the threat of eavesdropping. Based on the identity of the sender and recipient, policy rules can be created to secure all communications between particular individuals or specific groups of users.

• Privacy and Security of data-in-transit and data-at-rest: Data policy rules can be set to secure the data stored in servers at the backend as well as the data getting transmitted and exchanged between senders and recipients. Encrypting all communications between certain persons of importance (for example, the CEO and CFO) or groups of users (remote finance departments, legal division and outside law firm, executive management, and R&D, etc.) is of utmost importance.

Securing corporate communications should start with the company's formation. Physical controls must be in place before new gadgets & infrastructure may be incubated. To safeguard company communications, qualified security staff must be employed and trained. 

Centex Technologies provides advanced cybersecurity solutions to businesses. To know more about securing business communications, contact Centex Technologies at Killeen (254) 213 - 4740, Dallas (972) 375 - 9654, Atlanta (404) 994 - 5074, and Austin (512) 956 – 5454.

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