Lack of Hardened Benchmarks Leads to Poor Cyber Hygiene

The Center for Internet Security (CIS) refers to an organization's implementation of security controls as its “cyber hygiene,” but a new survey finds that nearly two-thirds of organizations are not practicing good cyber hygiene habits as they have no established benchmarks for implementing security controls.  The new State of Cyber Hygiene Report by Tripwire surveyed 306 IT security professionals to learn if and how organizations are implementing security controls. Conducted in July 2018 in partnership with Dimensional Research, the survey found that almost two-thirds of organizations admitted that they do not use hardening benchmarks, such as CIS or Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) guidelines, to establish a secure baseline. “These industry standards are one way to leverage the broader community, which is important with the resource constraints that most organizations experience," said Tripwire’s Tim Erlin, vice president of product management and strategy, in a press release. "It's surprising that so many respondents aren’t using established frameworks to provide a baseline for measuring their security posture. It’s vital to get a clear picture of where you are so that you can plan a path forward." Maintaining visibility of their environments is an ongoing challenge for many organizations, which makes it difficult for them to quickly address unauthorized potential issues. While attackers can launch a successful network attack in minutes, 57% of respondents said it takes them hours, weeks, months or longer to detect new devices connecting to their organization’s network.

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GuidePoint Security Announces Portfolio of Data Security Governance Services

GuidePoint Security | January 30, 2024

GuidePoint Security, a cybersecurity solutions leader enabling organizations to make smarter decisions and minimize risk, today announced the availability of its Data Security Governance services, which are designed to help customers address the challenges of unstructured data and data sprawl through a proven process and program to meet their unique needs. GuidePoint’s Data Security Governance services consist of policies, standards, and processes leveraging the newest technologies to meet organizations’ data governance goals in both on-prem and cloud environments. Once the right strategy is determined with the customer, GuidePoint Security consultants will review program requirements, assess current policies and controls, perform gap analysis, design and develop/enhance the program, recommend and implement supporting technologies, and create operational processes and metrics. “Whether an organization is just beginning to build their data security governance program or needs help assessing and improving an existing program, our team and service capabilities are built to meet them at their current maturity level,” said Scott Griswold, Practice Director - Security Governance Services, GuidePoint Security. “We work side by side with the customer to conduct the necessary data discovery in their environment and provide tailored recommendations for solutions and processes to ultimately build/improve upon the data security governance program.” GuidePoint’s Data Security Governance Services include: Sensitive Data Cataloging: For organizations just getting started in the process of protecting their sensitive data, GuidePoint offers Data Identification workshops to identify sensitive data types in the environment, including trade secrets, intellectual property, and sensitive business communications. Data Security Governance Program Assessment: For organizations with existing Data Security Governance or Data Protection programs, GuidePoint Security experts will assess the program to identify policy non-compliance, gaps in data protection requirements—whether legal, regulatory, contractual, or business—and program maturity levels. Data Security Governance Program Strategy Development: The GuidePoint team will work with an organization's key stakeholders to design a program strategy aligned with relevant requirements. The outputs of this effort include delivering ongoing sensitive data discovery, automated classification and labeling, the application of required sensitive data protections, restrictions on where sensitive data can be stored and sent, and data retention policy enforcement. Merger and Acquisition Data Identification: This offering provides the ability to identify sensitive data within an M&A target or recent acquisition (including locations, amounts, and access rights) and then perform penetration testing on the storage repositories where that sensitive data exists to determine the risk of data compromise. About GuidePoint Security GuidePoint Security provides trusted cybersecurity expertise, solutions and services that help organizations make better decisions that minimize risk. Our experts act as your trusted advisor to understand your business and challenges, helping you through an evaluation of your cybersecurity posture and ecosystem to expose risks, optimize resources and implement best-fit solutions. GuidePoint’s unmatched expertise has enabled a third of Fortune 500 companies and more than half of the U.S. government cabinet-level agencies to improve their security posture and reduce risk. Learn more at www.guidepointsecurity.com.

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