Cyberattackers are finding more and more innovative ways to wreak havoc and cause organizations millions of dollars in losses. Global News Wire reported that cybercrime will cost the world a staggering $10.5 Trillion Annually By 2025. A study by Accenture also found that 43% of cyber attacks are aimed at small businesses, but only 14% are prepared to defend themselves. In such trying times, a need for an adaptive and self-sufficient cyber security strategy has risen. This is where continuous cybersecurity monitoring comes into play.

A continuous cybersecurity monitoring (CSM) plan is a smart approach to protect your systems against cyber threats by automating the monitoring of your IT ecosystem using AI and ML, which makes it easier to detect breaches in real-time and provide timely responses to avoid massive losses. Such a plan also gives you the ability to send immediate alerts to the security incident and event management (SIEM) system, adding another layer of much-needed protection. CSM also comes with an inherent ability to track down leaked credentials and exposed data on the open, deep, and dark web, another reason why it is being popularly adopted worldwide.

But being a novel technological advancement, proper and sturdy implementation of CSM is still not a smooth process. There are certain challenges that hinder it from achieving its full potential. This article shall take a closer look at the challenges involved in the implementation of continuous cybersecurity monitoring.

Challenges in Implementing CSM

Developing and implementing a CSM plan is a crucial part to ensure the proper working of your cybersecurity program. But, without appropriate planning and implementation of security controls an under-developed plan can leave you with a false sense of security and awareness. Here are the challenges that you might face while implementing CSM.

  • Identification of Critical Assets 

With a massive onset in the relevance and importance of data, organizations these days find it common to own massive hordes of assets. Statista forecasts that data creation will be over 180 zettabytes by 2025. With such a wide variety of assets available to enterprises, it is equally important to categorize them in terms of criticality. 

A major challenge associated with the rollout of a proper CSM plan is the identification of critical assets. All departments should be clearly notified of what assets to be categorized as high, medium, and low, from a criticality aspect. Along with identifying the critical assets, there should also be time spent on figuring out how these assets should be scanned, how long data should be retained, and how often data should be analyzed.

  • Keeping Track of Endpoint Activity

Tracking endpoints have always been a challenge, even before the development of CSM strategies. Internal and external stakeholders can introduce endpoints whenever they feel like it and endpoints aren’t just limited to PCs; they can include Wi-Fi, printers, smartphones and even wearables. Unless and until an organization’s CSM strategy can accurately track all newly created and existing endpoints, chances of oversight will exist.

Organizations can try and negate such a challenge by taking a hybrid approach to continuous monitoring. Combing passive, real-time monitoring with an always-on active scanner is an efficient way to keep track of vulnerable as well as newly created endpoints.

  • Choosing the Correct Toolset

Another hurdle most organizations face while implementing CSM is selecting the correct tools. A major point to keep in mind is that the importance, use and effectiveness of each tool are going to be different for each organization. Security teams need to be equipped with the knowledge to know what to monitor, how to monitor, and where to monitor activity on the network. 

During its early days of development, there was trouble finding the right tools that could properly support CSM initiatives. Fortunately, the past few years have seen the development of tools that are in line with CSM policies and strategies. Choosing tools these days depend on numerous factors such as the size of your budget, the skill level of the security team and what functionalities are required by the organization.

Implementing a continuous cyber security monitoring plan can indeed be a hefty task, but it repays your efforts by taking the necessary steps to be aware of the ever-changing threat landscape and keeping your system safe from ever-evolving threats. Despite not being 100% secure, a CSM strategy is a much-needed element of your cybersecurity program, and constant innovations in the field will only aid in the approach’s growth and development.

Also read, How to implement continous cybersecuirty monitoring?

Why Choose Intone Continuous Control Monitoring (iCCM)?

Cyberattacks were rated the 5th top-rated risk in 2020 and have become the new norm of terrorizing public and private sectors. It was also reported that cybercrime is up an astounding 600% as a result of the Covid-19 Pandemic. In such dangerous times, the need for an adaptable and secure way of protecting IT infrastructure has risen. We at Intone understand this need and have developed a continuous control monitoring plan that can help secure your systems against the latest threats plaguing the industry. We offer,

  • An end-to-end enterprise platform integrates key GRC functional requirements of security, risk management, incident management, data visualization/ virtualization, continuous control monitoring, continuous auditing, robotic process automation and fraud, and compliance management into one single solution.
  • Connections with  240+ Industry Standard Data Sources and applications.
  • Low-Code/No-Code Platform with drag/drop features and In-Built Multiple System Communications Feature.
  • An automated ERM and control response system along with automated incident management and resolution system.
  • A microservices audit platform with real-time reporting and Uninterrupted underlying systems.
  • We offer SSL encryption and AES 256 bit encryption to ensure that your sensitive data is safeguarded against malicious attempts at modification and manipulation.
  • We offer state-of-the-art infrastructure in terms of cybersecurity, with secure architecture, firewall, and intrusion detection/prevention system designs to boost your security against cyber breaches and threats.
  • Intone offers an extensive range of regulatory, data privacy, and Sarbanes Oxley compliance and industry solutions to meet the current regulatory requirements and to ensure that you will not face any trouble when it comes to product/process-related compliance requirements.
  • Our RPA will anonymize your data to ensure greater protection of sensitive data and information.

Check out how Intone can help you streamline your manual business process with Robotic Process Automation solutions.

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