Moving Past Annual Audits: Why Continuous Cybersecurity is Essential
It’s 2 am on a Saturday, you’re sound asleep, and suddenly your phone lights up, ringing and buzzing loudly on your nightstand. You know it won’t be good news, but it’s worse than you could have imagined—your network and systems have suffered a ransomware attack. As you quickly change and start driving into the office, you keep asking yourself one question—didn’t we pass our annual security audit three months ago with flying colors?
With the CISA and FBI joint reporting of “an increase in highly impactful ransomware attacks occurring on holidays and weekends,” this situation is sadly common. Too often, organizations fall into this trap of treating annual cybersecurity audits like an annual physical exam, believing they’re doing enough. But in today’s rapidly evolving threat landscape, this approach is as effective as trying to manage a team by only talking to them once a year. You miss countless opportunities for improvement, fail to address any emerging challenges, and have to assume rather than know the day-to-day realities. In a similar vein, it might not be 2 am, but it’s time for a wake-up call: the cybersecurity landscape has evolved, and so must our approach to protecting ourselves.
The Fallacy of the Annual Checkup
Imagine if you only checked your bank account balance statement once a year. In that 364-day window, fraudulent charges could be piling up, automatic payments could be overdrawing your account, and you remain blissfully unaware until you no longer have access to your funds or until your scheduled “annual checkup.” Sounds absolutely absurd, right? Yet, this is precisely how I see many businesses approach cybersecurity.
Annual security audits act as a single snapshot of your environment. They provide a point-in-time assessment that, within minutes, can become immediately obsolete. Anyone who works on the operations side knows about the importance of mean time to resolution (MTTR), how significant one minute is, and how 60 seconds can cost, on average, $14,056. As an engineer, I’m impatient, I want to get things done, so a minute can feel like a lifetime. A year? That’s eternity.
But We’re Compliant! Isn’t That Enough?
Ah, compliance and the infamous announcement that “we passed our annual security audit!” This means we’re secure, right? Wrong. Compliance is the bare minimum, not the gold standard or best practice. It’s the equivalent of looking at a candidate’s resume where they claim they’re a cybersecurity expert when their experience is graduating college and getting a CEH or Pen+ certification… Compliance should serve as a baseline and be further improved upon based on the current and ever-changing cyber threats that arise.
Embracing Continuous Cybersecurity
So, how does one modernize their approach to security audits? Enter continuous security validation—a dynamic and proactive approach that views security as an ongoing process rather than a hectic annual event. It’s like having a shiny, new, state-of-the-art security system that’s always on, always learning, and always adapting to new threats and the changing landscape instead of waiting for someone to break down the door for the alarm to go off.
Continuous security validation includes:
- Real-time monitoring and validating your attack surface.
- Performing automated and targeted pen-testing on mission-critical areas.
- Understanding and prioritizing vulnerabilities.
- Reduce MTTR by training your SOC and testing real attack situations.
- Ongoing on-demand reporting for risk assessment and progress.
Implementing continuous security validation isn’t just checking boxes; it’s about building and maintaining a resilient, adaptive security posture. You’re not just focused on the now clear sea and skies. Instead, you’re preparing your ship and crew to withstand the strong storms and treacherous waters that tomorrow’s sophisticated attacks bring.
The Future is Now
The digital landscape is always changing and waits for no one. Every second relying on outdated security practices is a golden opportunity for cybercriminals to exploit. Continuous cybersecurity isn’t a far-fetched concept or possibility that only exists in a futuristic, sci-fi utopian society; it’s a present-day reality and fundamental necessity that must be embraced in every environment. The threats are continuous and relentless; shouldn’t your defense be, too?
To learn more about continuous cybersecurity and how you can better protect your organization, schedule a meeting with Teneo to discuss our StreamlineX framework and how you can leverage the benefits of a modern security suite.
Author: Thomas Rogers, Solutions Engineer, Teneo