In Security, Seeing Is Believing

Security solution providers need to use advanced technology to help customers understand the breadth of their security vulnerabilities.?

They say seeing is believing. Once someone experiences something with their own eyes, they’re more apt to understand and act. This principle is as true with security as it is with anything else in life. The problem is that most businesses don’t know what’s in their IT infrastructure and inventory. They know about many assets and applications, but few have a genuine understanding of their end-to-end IT fabric.?

This lack of understanding isn’t a result of willful blindness or ignorance. IT networks and systems are dynamic. They change every hour of every day. The more companies digitally transform their operations, the less certain they become of the state of their devices, applications, and data. Unfortunately, that lack of certainty contributes to increased exposure to security risks.?

An effective data and infrastructure security strategy starts with understanding what needs protection. This requires taking inventory of all the assets (devices), applications, and data. From there, an infrastructure topology comes into view. And with that topology comes a view of an organization’s attack surface, or the total area that a hacker can target from various angles to compromise defenses and exploit resources.?

The attack surface includes everything that can be attacked, inside and outside a company’s digital perimeter. Even the smallest companies can have huge attack surfaces relative to their size. Depending on the number of devices, the sensitivity of data, the location of assets, and the applications in use, even SMBs can be exposed to multiple attack vectors – the pathways an attacker might take to exploit vulnerabilities.?

Just as those attack vectors are a means for hackers to penetrate a target network or system, they’re also a potential opening for solution providers to help customers enhance their security. By showing customers what they don’t know about their attack surfaces and exposure to attack vectors, partners can stimulate conversations that lead to product sales and service engagements.?

By offering insight into clients’ individual risks, partners can begin to sell client point products that specifically apply to them. These products, such as anti-spam software and firewall appliances – can lock down unique security threats that clients might not be aware of.?

In offering these insights and products, the partner can present itself as a security service provider – a trusted party that has a 360-degree view of the client’s security posture, can assess the client’s risk of attack, and can recommend best practices for aligning the client’s business operations with its security stance.?

If a partner can categorize a client’s risks and do the appropriate workflow, it can offer high value, mature security services, create unique security policies and processes, and address the client according to the specific way it works. The polices that the client adopts become the underpinning of the ongoing environment from a security standpoint.

Shining a light on companies’ digital domain to dispel the darkness where security vulnerabilities live starts with having the right tools. CyCognito specializes in providing partners and customers with the ability to see into the nooks and crannies of a company’s domain to fully understand the breadth of the attack surface and identify the known and unknown attack vectors.?

If we can expose more people to the knowledge of where they have these hidden vulnerabilities, security solution providers can help customers protect their critical infrastructure from both today’s threats and tomorrow’s. We need to help them see to believe.?

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Lori Cornmesser, vice president of worldwide channel sales at Cycognito, is a seasoned channel and security executive, a leader in diversity, equity, and inclusion movements, and recognized with numerous awards for sales and leadership excellence. Follow Lori on Twitter: @loriclori.