The ability to respond effectively to a cybersecurity breach is critical, but the missing piece of the puzzle is a thorough, proactive evaluation to ascertain weaknesses and identify any hidden threats. After all, no matter how effectively an organisation responds to a cyber breach, there’s no escaping from the basic truth that the defences were breached and some loss occurred.
Cybersecurity 101 tells one that it is better not to be breached at all. That is where a compromise assessment comes in.
‘Compromise assessment’ is a relatively new term, but it is easily explained. It is essentially a proactive, in-depth evaluation of an organisation’s IT infrastructure. A compromise assessment aims to uncover hidden (or suspected) malicious activities and pinpoint threats and vulnerabilities. One key way it does this is by looking for signs of a past or ongoing security breach.
Traditional security measures often fail to identify these indicators of compromise. It is important to do so for several reasons, not the least of which is that they would indicate where a system is vulnerable, so that this vulnerability can be eliminated.
Equally important; a large proportion of cybercrimes are not even detected. Hackers take great care to disguise the fact that they have penetrated an organisation’s defences. This allows them to explore the system thoroughly in order to identify where the most valuable data is located, and to compromise measures put in place to secure that data in an emergency, such as a ransomware attack.
It is particularly worth noting that hackers are adept at exploiting the operating system’s own tools to achieve their nefarious goals — this means that conventional antivirus programs would not register such activities as vulnerabilities. However, penetration testing undertaken as part of the compromise assessment can be used to identify such activities.
Most attacks unfold in a series of steps over months. IBM’s Cost of Data Breach Report revealed that the average time to detect and contain a cyberattack is around nine months. Just like a cat burglar, a skilled hacker gains access and then surreptitiously moves laterally through the system.
In addition, hackers can use this window of opportunity to prepare for multiple attacks in the future; 80% of ransomware victims are likely to be the targets of repeat attacks by the same cybercriminals.
It’s clear. You need to know whether your system was breached in the past, and how that breach occurred.
Do you need a compromise assessment?
Organisations should request a compromise assessment if they suspect a breach may have occurred, but do not have clear evidence. They should also have one performed to ensure that there are currently no hidden threats or undetected breaches.
In short, a compromise assessment is a valuable way of assessing the effectiveness of the organisation’s current security measures and can be used to improve its overall security posture.
When companies are merging or being acquired, as part of the due-diligence process the target company should be put through a compromise assessment to ensure its systems are uncompromised before the two IT estates are brought together. The Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) recommends compromise assessments as best practice for all organisations.
What does a compromise assessment look like?
Several elements make up a compromise assessment:
Data collection and analysis. The team collects data from multiple sources, such as logs, network traffic reports and endpoints. This data is then analysed using advanced tools and techniques to detect signs of malicious activity or anomalies that need further investigation.
Threat hunting entails actively searching for hidden threats across the entire network and IT estate. It uses information about new threats and what is known about cybercriminals' methods to expose potential and ongoing suspicious activity. Threat hunting is an ongoing process, whereas overall compromise assessment is periodic.
Reporting. The final stage of the process is to compile a detailed report of the findings, including identified threats, vulnerabilities and recommendations for remediation.
Finally, it is worth noting that a compromise assessment cannot be trusted to software (no matter how intelligent) alone. Artificial intelligence and machine learning undoubtedly have a key role to play in processing the huge amounts of data that are available about the system itself and the ever-changing threat landscape, but this analysis must be complemented by the human intelligence of an experienced security professional. Only humans can leverage experience and knowledge creatively and make the kind of lateral, intuitive connections that uncover even the best-camouflaged vulnerabilities.
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