Resources

Guide

Why Integrity Should Be Your Organizing Cybersecurity Principle

While integrity has been a common word in the cybersecurity lexicon for years, its meaning and use have been relatively limited. It may be time to reconsider its central role in security. The reality of always-connected networks, fluid data transfers across cloud and hybrid environments, and broadly deployed endpoints presents an opportunity to take a fresh look at integrity as an organizing...
Guide

Threat Prevention is Foundational

How proper foundational controls help block today’s advanced threats
Guide

Meeting Multiple Compliance Objectives Simultaneously With the CIS Controls

The CIS Controls are a set of recommendations comprised of controls and benchmarks. They are intended to serve as a cybersecurity “best practice” for preventing damaging attacks. The recommendations are meant to provide a holistic approach to cybersecurity and to be effective across all industries. Adhering to them serves as an effective foundation for any organization’s security and compliance...
Guide

5 File Integrity Monitoring (FIM) Myths and Misconceptions

File integrity monitoring (FIM) is the cybersecurity process that monitors and detects changes in your environment to alert you to threats and helps you remediate them. While monitoring environments for change sounds simple enough, there are plenty of misconceptions about how exactly FIM fits into a successful cybersecurity program. It’s essential to address those common myths now so that...
Guide

File Integrity Monitoring (FIM) Software Buyer's Guide

There’s a lot more to file integrity monitoring than simply detecting change. Although FIM is a common policy requirement, there are many FIM capabilities and processes you can elect to implement or not. These can vary from a simple “checkbox” compliance tool to the option to build effective security and operational controls. These decisions directly affect the value your organization gains from...
Guide

The Value of True File Integrity Monitoring

File Integrity Monitoring (FIM) is a technology that monitors for changes in files that may indicate a cyberattack. In many organizations, however, FIM mostly means noise: too many changes, no context around these changes, and little insight into whether a detected change actually poses a risk. What does file integrity monitoring do? FIM, and often referred to as “change audit” was around long...
Guide

The Executive's Guide to the CIS Controls

See how simple and effective security controls can create a framework that helps you protect your organization and data from known cyber attack vectors. This publication was designed to assist executives by providing guidance for implementing broad baseline technical controls that are required to ensure a robust network security posture. In this guide, we will cover a wide range of topics...
Guide

Integrity: The True Measure of Enterprise Security

Federal cybersecurity integrity is often defined as the incorruptibility of data (as part of the CIA triad), and file integrity monitoring (FIM), a control which has become a compliance requirement in standards such as FISMA and PCI DSS. Read the full white paper to learn more.
Guide

File integrity Monitoring (FIM) for Comprehensive Integrity Management

Shifting language can be difficult, but it’s more appropriate to talk about Integrity Management in regards to today’s technology landscape. Integrity Management provides an umbrella approach to managing risk in an environment. There are four basic steps to ensuring integrity: Secure deployment System baseline Change monitoring Change remediation This white paper will help you broaden your...
Blog

CIS Control 18 Penetration Testing

Penetration testing is something that more companies and organizations should be considering a necessary expense. I say this because over the years the cost of data breaches and other forms of malicious intrusions and disruptions are getting costlier. Per IBM Security’s “Cost of a Data Breach Report 2021,” the average cost of a breach has increased 10%...
Blog

CIS Control 17: Incident Response Management

We all know that it is a question of when you will be compromised and not if you will be compromised. It is unavoidable. The goal of CIS Control 17 is to ensure that you are set up for success when that inevitable breach occurs. If an organization is neither equipped nor prepared for that potential data breach, they are not likely to succeeded in...
Blog

CIS Control 16 Application Software Security

The way in which we interact with applications has changed dramatically over years. Enterprises use applications in day-to-day operations to manage their most sensitive data and control access to system resources. Instead of traversing a labyrinth of networks and systems, attackers today see an opening to turn an organizations applications against it to...
Blog

CIS Control 15: Service Provider Management

  Enterprises today rely on partners and vendors to help manage their data. Some companies depend on third-party infrastructure for day-to-day operations, so understanding the regulations and protection standards that a service provider is promising to uphold is very important. Key Takeaways from Control 15 Identify your business needs and create a...
Blog

How to Fulfill Multiple Compliance Objectives Using the CIS Controls

Earlier this year, I wrote about what’s new in Version 8 of the Center for Internet Security’s Critical Security Controls (CIS Controls). An international consortium of security professionals first created the CIS Controls back in 2008. Since then, the security community has continued to update the CIS Controls to keep pace with the evolution of...
Blog

What Is FIM (File Integrity Monitoring)?

Change is prolific in organizations’ IT environments. Hardware assets change. Software programs change. Configuration states change. Some of these modifications are authorized insofar as they occur during an organization’s regular patching cycle, while others cause concern by popping up unexpectedly. Organizations commonly respond to this dynamism by...
Blog

CIS Control 14: Security Awareness and Skill Training

Users who do not have the appropriate security awareness training are considered a weak link in the security of an enterprise. These untrained users are easier to exploit than finding a flaw or vulnerability in the equipment that an enterprise uses to secure its network. Attackers could convince unsuspecting users to unintentionally provide access to...
Blog

CIS Control 13: Network Monitoring and Defense

Networks form a critical core for our modern-day society and businesses. People, processes, and technologies should be in place for monitoring, detecting, logging, and preventing malicious activities that occur when an enterprise experiences an attack within or against their networks. Key Takeaways for Control 13 Enterprises should understand that...
Blog

CIS Control 12: Network Infrastructure Management

Networks form a critical core for our modern-day society and businesses. These networks are comprised of many types of components that make up the networks’ infrastructure. Network infrastructure devices can be physical or virtual and include things such as routers, switches, firewalls, and wireless access points. Unfortunately, many devices are shipped...
Blog

CIS Control 11: Data Recovery

Data loss can be a consequence of a variety of factors from malicious ransomware to hardware failures and even natural disasters. Regardless of the reason for data loss, we need to be able to restore our data. A data recovery plan begins with prioritizing our data, protecting it while it is being stored, and having a plan to recover data.    Key...