Most businesses today are aware of the need for cybersecurity in an ever-changing digital environment. However, it’s not always obvious that cybersecurity involves more than simply implementing some cybersecurity solutions and assigning someone to look after them. What’s needed is a security team marked by resilience, able to respond quickly to any issues and grow with every incident.
Here are 5 ways to build a resilient security team to enable your business to stand strong in the face of any threat.
Before you can start building an effective and resilient security team, it’s highly desirable for the entire organisation to be on board with the process. An ethos of resilience doesn’t develop overnight but getting everyone from the top to the bottom to at least understand the concept will make implementation much smoother.
Most importantly, upper management should share the vision of resilience otherwise any efforts will either be misunderstood or face difficulties. Security teams and cybersecurity infrastructure often require significant funds and other resources. Upper management is rightly focused on success and won’t spend on anything that they don’t think will help the business.
Human resources is also a vital part of the process since they’re responsible for recruiting and managing employees. HR’s training programs and other initiatives are vital in spreading awareness of resilience and growth to both existing and new employees alike.
Before you can make your security team resilient, you need a proper security team. What roles your team will be made up of depends greatly on your industry and threat landscape, but it’s ideal to have several members that each specialise in an area with some crossover.
When hiring, look for security professionals with extensive experience to form the foundation of the team, with other less-experienced-but-eager members brought on to cover the rest. Security often involves tedious tasks and only hiring expensive highly experienced professionals will often lead to some of their skills being wasted. Less-experienced security professionals often bring fresh perspectives and resilience to the table which are important in a fluid environment such as security.
A solid security team lacks purpose unless they have a plan to focus their efforts. With resilience in view, important plans, procedures, and goals can be formulated. These plans, such as disaster recovery and business continuity plans, are vital not just for responding to issues but also for learning from them to build resilience.
Both plans require a comprehensive knowledge of what assets the business possesses, who owns these assets, and what specifically those assets are used for. Security teams develop these plans over time with security hygiene in mind, where all assets are analysed and monitored under a single plan to avoid siloing. Resilience is achieved as each plan improves over time.
With the cybersecurity environment evolving by the day, security teams need to operate on a basis of continuous education and growth. Even security professionals with decades of experience need to keep up to date with the latest trends and threats. Conferences, courses, and other educational opportunities should be worked into budgets and schedules to ensure the team is kept up-to-date and ready for anything.
It's also important to allow security team members to make mistakes and learn from them. Data breaches and cyberattacks do happen and it’s not always straightforward to know what to do in the moment. If team members realise they won’t suffer unfair consequences by trying their best to protect the organisation, resilience-building confidence is built and not stress.
The above efforts will lose much of their effectiveness if they are not implemented in effective and efficient cooperation between security team members and other areas of the organisation.
Security team members should be seen as a vital part of the organisation’s functions and their judgements as security professionals must be respected, even by upper management. If the security team is taught how to communicate effectively and other employees learn to respect the team, a lot of unnecessary trouble can be avoided.
Security teams aren’t the be-all and end-all, but they certainly should be allowed to do their job. Then the security team’s resilience will be boosted once they are allowed to operate effectively.
Is your business ready to start building an effective security team marked by resilience? Even if you are part of a small business with only a few IT professionals, you can already begin implementing the above concepts now. However, none of these points will protect your organisation on their own – what your security team needs are the right tools for the job.
Tarsus Distribution partners with cutting-edge cybersecurity brands who make it their mission to protect your business. Cybersecurity solutions providers such as Check Point, Ivanti, Kaspersky, and Sophos give your security teams the edge to be proactive and resilient, no matter the situation.
Visit our cybersecurity solutions page to get in touch and give your security team the best tools they need to protect your business today.
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