What are the best strategies for managing cyber operations across multiple business units?

I landed my very first cybersecurity role at at growing fintech company which had no cybersecurity dept or staff. The firm had already bagged big names as their clients and I immediately knew that I needed to rump up not just personnel but also Standard Operating Procedures. Additionally, it is important to also align with the rest of the business why the department is important even for the customers we are serving. Once these are aligned, its good to perform a gap analysis to establish which areas need more work and thereby informing which overall framework you should adopt and customize for your organization

Establishing a cyber operations framework is super important for effective cyber defense. It delineates roles, governance, performance metrics, and communication channels, ensuring coordinated efforts and compliance. By providing clarity and consistency, it optimizes operations, minimizes redundancy, and enhances accountability across business units.

So, when it comes to managing cyber operations across multiple business units, think of it like this: First off, you want to set up a central system, kind of like a headquarters, where you establish rules and standards that everyone follows. This ensures everyone is on the same page, no matter which unit they're in. Then, you need good communication – like having direct lines between each unit. This makes it easy for them to share info about any cyber threats they encounter and work together to tackle them.

Not too long time ago we did the following: Before! Concentrate on developing a comprehensive framework and defining roles and responsibilities for daily operations. I would do the following tactics: 1. Ensure C-level approval the United BU Strategy and comprehension of cyber security risks. 2. Designate a manager for United BU Cyber Operations oversight. 3. Each BU should nominate a champion for collaboration. 4. Inventory cybersecurity tools across all BUs, eliminating redundant or irrelevant ones based on specific threats. 5. Prioritize tools with integration capabilities and superior logging for a unified data lake. 6. Establish a single truth source for all cyber security logs.

A cyber operations framework serves as the backbone for managing and executing cyber operations effectively. By encompassing policies, standards, processes, and tools, it provides a structured approach to guide and support activities within your organization. From defining roles and responsibilities to establishing governance structures and communication channels, the framework ensures clarity and consistency. This coherence helps coordinate cyber operations across various business units, minimizing duplication and confusion while enhancing compliance and accountability. NIST Cybersecurity Framework (CSF) is a great place to start.

While dealing with multiple business units its important to have a centralized SOC. This brings cost optimization as you get more out of security tools and at the same time combined logs when analyzed will result in a better security posture with lesser false positives(at the overall level) and hence reduced alert fatigue.

A key recommendation from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) regarding cyber operations centers (Cyber Ops Centers) is to establish a centralized hub for monitoring, analyzing, and responding to cybersecurity incidents effectively. This hub should be equipped with the necessary tools, processes, and personnel to collect, correlate, and analyze data from various sources, enabling timely detection and response to cyber threats. Additionally, NIST emphasizes the importance of implementing robust incident response procedures and regularly exercising these procedures through simulated exercises to ensure readiness to handle cybersecurity incidents effectively.

Agree, but let me add two things here. After establishment, you may also want to emphasize integration. We should ensure the cy-ops center seamlessly integrates with existing IT, security, and IR functions across all business units. All data flows, comm protocols, including procedures should be tightly defined to allow immediate actions. Then you may want to consider proactive posture. Don't limit the center to reactive IR, instead emphasize utilizing it for proactive actions (threat huntings, vuln assessments, and continuous monitoring). As what I understand, this will shift your security posture towards prevention. And this is ideal for multi-unit environment.

Establishing a centralized cyber operations center (CSOC) is a strategic imperative for managing cybersecurity across diverse business units. The CSOC combines skilled resources, best practices, and technology solutions to detect, monitor, respond to, and recover from cyberthreats. Its pillars include documented processes, cyber products, and experienced security analysts. By aligning with business objectives, the CSOC ensures timely threat detection, effective response, and robust defense preparedness.

Un SOC (Security Operations Center) se conoce como el centro de comando central para operaciones de ciberseguridad. Un equipo de ciberseguridad utiliza herramientas de detección avanzadas para identificar, registrar y evitar ataques cibernéticos. Los analistas trabajan con un libro de jugadas que establecen los pasos que deben seguir para mantener segura su organización. Sus principales objetivos son: -Vigilar los sistemas de información y comunicación de una empresa para detectar posibles amenazas en las actividades y procesos. -Analizar amenazas o ataques para conocer las nuevas armas que usan los ciberdelincuentes y desarrollar las herramientas de protección. -Recuperar equipos da?ados o información perdida a causa de ataques.

Identify risks across businesses, focusing on potential impact and likelihood of occurrence. Assign scores based on severity and probability. Prioritize addressing high-risk areas first, allocating resources accordingly. Continuously monitor and reassess risks to adapt strategies. This ensures efficient use of resources to mitigate the most significant threats and safeguard operations across all businesses.

NIST recommends adopting a risk-based prioritization approach to allocate cyber operations resources effectively. This method involves assessing the likelihood and severity of cyber events, as well as the criticality and vulnerability of assets and business processes. By prioritizing based on risk and impact, organizations can focus on addressing the most significant and urgent cyber threats, aligning cyber operations with business objectives, and optimizing resource allocation. This approach enables organizations to balance trade-offs and costs while effectively managing cybersecurity risks.

For managing cyber operations across multiple business units, implementing a risk-based prioritization approach is essential. This method allocates resources based on the risk and impact of cyber threats, considering their likelihood, severity, and the vulnerability of critical assets. By focusing on the most significant issues, you can efficiently balance costs and address urgent matters. This strategic alignment ensures that cyber operations efforts are in harmony with overall business objectives, optimizing security measures where they're needed most.

No priorizar la gestión de los riesgos es uno de los grandes errores que cometen las organizaciones, especialmente cuando la implementación de un sistema de gestión de riesgos es reciente. Priorizar la gestión de los riesgos permite identificar aquellos que representan una mayor amenaza para responder ante ellos. Una forma sencilla de priorizar los riesgos es según su gravedad. Cuanto mayor sea la probabilidad y mayor sea el impacto, mayor ha de ser la prioridad de gestión y de respuesta. Cuando hablamos de actitud ante el riesgo hacemos referencia a una combinación de elementos: -Apetito de riesgo. -Tolerancia al riesgo. -Umbral de riesgo

Implementing a risk based prioritization approach is a strategic move in cybersecurity management. It allows for a focused deployment of resources, tackling threats that could have the most significant impact. This method respects the complexity of different risk profiles and ensures that the most critical vulnerabilities are addressed promptly, providing an agile response tailored to the needs of the business. It’s a smart, resource efficient strategy that aligns cybersecurity efforts with business priorities, ensuring that the most severe risks are mitigated first.

NIST emphasizes the importance of fostering a collaborative and learning culture within cyber operations teams. This mindset encourages teamwork, knowledge sharing, and continuous improvement. It involves building trust, transparency, and open communication channels within teams and across stakeholders, including business units, senior management, and external partners. By promoting collaboration and learning, organizations can enhance cyber operations skills and capabilities, leverage collective intelligence and experience, and effectively adapt to evolving cyber threats and environments. This approach fosters innovation, resilience, and agility, ultimately strengthening the organization's cybersecurity posture.

Fostering a collaborative and learning culture is crucial for managing cyber operations across multiple business units. Encourage open communication and knowledge sharing between units to identify and mitigate threats more effectively. Organize regular training sessions on the latest cybersecurity practices and encourage participation in cyber drills. This approach promotes a unified security posture, ensures consistency in security practices across the organization, and enables teams to respond to threats with agility and informed confidence.

To effectively manage cyber operations across business units, fostering a collaborative and learning culture is key. This approach encourages teamwork, knowledge sharing, and mutual learning among cyber teams and stakeholders, including business units and external partners. By promoting trust, transparency, and innovation, such a culture enhances skills, leverages collective intelligence, and ensures adaptability to evolving cyber threats. Embracing this mindset not only improves cyber operations but also aligns them more closely with organizational objectives, driving a unified defense strategy.

Encouraging a culture where team members openly share knowledge and learn from one another is key to enhancing your cyber operations. It's about building an environment of trust and transparency, where feedback is valued and innovation is encouraged. I love this approach as it not only elevates the skills and capabilities within your team but also harnesses the collective intelligence and experience available, making your cyber operations more agile and responsive to new challenges.

Una visión general de cinco prácticas para crear una cultura de ciberseguridad están: 1. Invertir en las herramientas de seguridad adecuadas 2. Hacer que la seguridad sea accesible 3. Promover la ciberhigiene desde el inicio ? Animar a tus ejecutivos a participar en cursos de formación de ciberseguridad. ? Aplicar las políticas y procesos de seguridad de forma generalizada. ? Trabajar con los responsables de las políticas para adaptar los procedimientos según cómo funcionen para los miembros de la junta directiva. ? Partir de la base de que las prácticas tardan en propagarse por toda la empresa: la evolución de la cultura requiere tiempo y esfuerzo. 4. Centrarse en la persona 5. Trabajar en una estrategia de confianza cero

NIST advises organizations to establish a robust review and improvement process for their cyber operations. This mechanism facilitates the measurement and evaluation of performance, identification of gaps and weaknesses, and implementation of improvements. It entails collecting and analyzing data and feedback from diverse sources such as audits, surveys, reports, and lessons learned. By systematically reviewing and improving cyber operations, organizations can enhance quality and effectiveness, increase maturity and resilience, and achieve continuous improvement goals. This iterative process is essential for maintaining a strong cybersecurity posture and adapting to evolving threats and challenges effectively.

To truly make informed decisions on cyber risks, one needs a single point of truth for cybersecurity. This goes beyond just data aggregation, it's about standardizing data collection, analysis and reporting across all business units. This allows for consistent risk assessment, comparable metrics and transparent communication across the organization. Additionally, consider centralized threat intelligence and vulnerability management to ensure everyone has the same understanding of the threat landscape and vulnerabilities. A unified approach to data and analysis empowers informed decision-making and strengthens one's overall cyber resilience.

A review and improvement process is a continuous, cyclical mechanism for measuring and evaluating cyber operations performance. It proactively identifies weaknesses by combining data-driven insights with qualitative feedback from various sources, including audits, surveys, reports, and lessons learned. This process aligns cyber operations improvements with the broader risk context of the business.

Regularly reviewing and improving cyber operations is crucial for effective cybersecurity across multiple business units. Conduct periodic assessments to identify vulnerabilities and assess the effectiveness of current security measures. Use these insights to update and refine cyber strategies, ensuring they align with evolving business objectives and threat landscapes. Incorporate feedback from all business units to foster a collaborative security culture. Continuous improvement helps adapt to new challenges, reducing risk and enhancing overall security posture.

Cyber operations should be subject to continuous scrutiny. Regular reviews and refinements of cyber strategies ensure that they remain robust against an ever-evolving threat landscape. It's an iterative process, where feedback loops serve as the compass for navigating the complex waters of cybersecurity, guiding the organization toward a continuously improving security stance.

Standardize Security Policies and Procedures: Establish standardized security policies and procedures that apply across all business units. Ensure that these policies are communicated effectively to all employees and stakeholders, and regularly update them to address emerging threats Technology Standardization: Standardize the technology stack where feasible to streamline security management and ensure consistency in security measures. Regularly update and patch systems to address vulnerabilities. Vendor Risk Management: Assess and manage the cybersecurity risks associated with third-party vendors, as they may have access to the systems or data of multiple business units.

When managing cyber operations across multiple business units, consider integrating a centralized security information and event management (SIEM) system for real-time visibility and control. Foster a culture of security awareness through regular training and communication. Establish clear security policies and procedures tailored to each unit's specific risks and needs. Ensure regular audits and compliance checks are conducted. Leverage threat intelligence sharing within and between units. Finally, implement a unified incident response plan to address breaches effectively.

Beyond the structured strategies, it’s essential to maintain a degree of adaptability to respond to the unexpected. This means considering the human factor, the unpredictable nature of cyber threats, and the inevitable evolution of technology. It’s about thinking beyond the playbook and being prepared to improvise, innovate, and lead in uncharted territories.

Make your cybersecurity stronger by setting strict rules for who can access things & keeping close eye on everything to catch problems early. To boost cybersecurity across business units, make clear plan, centralize operations, focus on risks, encourage teamwork, & regularly check how things are going. Put strong controls in place, keep an eye on things all time, train your team, use smart tools, & have plan for emergencies. Keep everything up to date, use extra security steps, split up your networks, test for weaknesses, make sure others follow rules & keep an eye on inside threats. Make security part of building software, check for weak points, work with others in your industry, secure online services & manage your supply chain with care.

Only these three points. 1. Third-party risk management. We talked about today's interconnected business ecosystems; vuln within your vendors can expose your organization. 2. Zero Trust architecture. When traditional security focus on perimeter, nowadays threatscape, you may want to move to Zero-Trust model, where no user or device is inherently trusted. Authentication and authorization are continuously challenged. Last, the human factor. Even with the best tech controls are vuln to human error and manipulation. Invest in continuous and also creative cybersecurity awareness training tailored to each business unit's needs. Like simulated phishing exercise to reinforce vigilance across the organization.