Looking to the future, we see an increasingly important role for the Cloud. Partly due to the pandemic that has gripped the world for nearly two years, digitalization has taken a significant leap forward and passed this true trial by fire with reasonable success. Workplaces have become much more digital, and all kinds of applications and services can be accessed anytime, anywhere. However, this is not without risk. Precisely because of this universal online accessibility, attack vectors are growing. Protecting data is a hotter topic than ever.
NIST CYBERSECURITY FRAMEWORK
Security is a crucial element of the Cloud, and Fundaments is committed to providing maximum security. We do not believe in relying on a single security measure, but rather in a comprehensive set of measures. We base our approach on the NIST Cybersecurity Framework, which consists of five phases: Identify, Protect, Detect, Respond, and Recover.
IDENTIFY
The identify phase involves understanding the organizational environment, the assets that support critical functions, and the associated cybersecurity risks. This creates focus and allows you to prioritize your efforts in accordance with your established risk management strategy and organizational needs. You can achieve this by mapping out the following five steps:
1. Asset management: knowing what you have;
2. Business environment: knowing the environment in which something is located;
3. Governance: knowing which policies and regulations must be met;
4. Risk assessment: knowing how to assess and interpret risks;
5. Risk management strategy: knowing how to handle risks.
PROTECT
Protect is about taking appropriate security measures to prevent or limit a security incident. This includes implementing suitable security measures to guarantee the delivery of critical (infrastructure) services and to limit or prevent the impact of a security incident. This can be done by applying, among other things, firewalling, a DDoS scrubbing center, and Backup as a Service.
DETECT
In the detect phase, you implement and develop measures to signal a security incident. This allows you to identify and interpret suspicious traffic and behavior, apply continuous monitoring of networks and users, and ensure that processes and procedures are in place in line with the organization's requirements.
“Once you have your house built, you need to put some items in your house to alert you to any pending danger or threats. These could be things like smoke detectors, carbon monoxide detectors and home alarm systems. Using that same analogy of building a house this would be the Detect function.”
RESPOND
In the respond phase, you ensure that procedures and processes are ready to act adequately after a security incident has been detected. The goal is to reduce the impact as much as possible. This can be achieved by creating a plan that describes who takes which actions and when. Ensure a solid communication plan and a comprehensive analysis of what is happening. Additionally, mitigating measures must be provided, and of course, lessons must be learned from the incident to implement improvements.
RECOVER
In the recover phase, you ensure that measures are taken to restore services and systems affected by the security incident to their normal state. You can achieve this by developing and implementing procedures that increase resilience and provide options to restore services and systems affected by the incident. Here, too, you must draw up a solid plan, not only for recovery but also for communication.
Our Solution Consultant, Colin, explains more about the NIST Framework in the Expert Clip below. He will get you fully up to speed in just four minutes.
