What is Cyber Resilience and Why Do You Need It?

What is Cyber Resilience and Why Do You Need It?

CEO Article by Larry Johnson

The Olympics have just finished, and we have had some examples of great performances in the Tokyo games. I watched as two USA wrestlers were down to the last seconds when they won their matches. Gable Stevenson was down to less than 2 seconds when he came back to win, and David Taylor had less than 14 seconds when he won his match. I was impressed that each wrestler showed resilience in their efforts to win gold.

The dictionary defines resilience as "the capacity to recover quickly from difficulties; toughness." The Computer Security Resource Center defines cyber resiliency as:

The ability to anticipate, withstand, recover from, and adapt to adverse conditions, stresses, attacks, or compromises on systems that use or are enabled by cyber resources.

Given today's increasingly evolving threat landscape, cyber resilience has become a critical factor in determining the success of an organization. Cyber resilience helps businesses defend against cybercrimes, mitigates risks and severity of attacks, and enables business continuity. A cyber-resilient business is well prepared to tackle cybersecurity incidents and can effectively respond to and quickly recover when such events occur.

What Is the Difference Between Cybersecurity and Cyber Resilience?

Cybersecurity deals with strengthening an organization's defenses to prevent cybercriminals and malicious programs from compromising its network, data, and IT infrastructure. It encompasses strategies and actions to keep threat actors at bay and protect company assets from loss, theft, or damage.

While cybersecurity is an essential part of an organization's security strategy, protection from sophisticated cyberattacks is never guaranteed. This is where cyber resilience comes in. Cyber resilience encompasses a broader umbrella, including deploying policies and solutions and clearly defining the steps to be taken when measures such as cybersecurity fail.

Cyber resilience is a broader concept covering business continuity, securing critical business processes, identifying potential threat vectors, managing risks, minimizing the severity of attacks, and implementing procedures to withstand cybersecurity incidents. Cyber resilience enables an organization to continue normal business operations without any interruption during and after disruptive events such as cyberattacks or technical failures. When done right, cyber resilience enables an organization to remain operational despite significant cyber disruptions.

Key Components of Cyber Resilience Framework

Given the unprecedented surge in cybercrimes, most businesses would agree that cyberattacks are no longer a matter of "if" but "when." As such, your business must ensure appropriate measures are in place to purge cybercriminals and protect critical assets and overcome any hurdles when disasters strike. To improve your organization's overall security and resiliency, you must implement a comprehensive cyber resilience framework. Your cyber resilience framework must include the following six key components:

1. Identify
The first component of a cyber resilience program is to identify critical business functions and assets and assess cybersecurity risks that could potentially disrupt them. This is vital to understanding and managing the risks to your organization's network, IT infrastructure, and information systems.

2. Protect
This step involves deploying necessary tools and technologies and implementing security measures to protect your systems, applications, and data. This component includes training and awareness, information security policies, identity management, and access control, and regular maintenance of your IT infrastructure.

3. Detect
The third function is to scan for vulnerabilities and suspicious activities and analyze their potential impact on your business. This step involves continuously monitoring to identify anomalies and cybersecurity risks to protect your sensitive information and systems from cyberattacks, system failures, and unauthorized access.

4. Respond
This is an essential function of a cyber resilience framework that highlights appropriate steps to be taken when a cybersecurity incident occurs. The objective of this component is to implement strategies and actions to mitigate the adverse effects of unplanned cybersecurity events.

5. Recover
This function aims to formulate an action plan to quickly return to normalcy after a security incident occurs. This helps restore systems, applications, or information impacted by a security breach or system failure. This step is vital in ensuring there is minimal or no impact on critical business functions or capabilities.

6. Adapt
Cyber resilience is not a "set it and forget it" kind of a program. It needs continuous improvements and modifications to withstand today's complex cybercrimes. Modern-day businesses use advanced solutions like AI-assisted analytics that provide elaborate reports on cyberattacks. These reports provide insights into your overall security posture, allow you to analyze and learn from past incidents, and apply what you have learned to prepare for future events.

Why Is Cyber Resilience Important?

One successful cyberattack is enough to wreak havoc, cause substantial financial losses, or in extreme cases, shut down your business permanently. Therefore, cyber resilience is vital to identify, assess, manage, mitigate, and recover from malicious attacks.

A good cyber resiliency strategy helps protect critical systems, applications, and data and enables quick recovery and business continuity in the face of disruptive cyber incidents. A comprehensive cyber resiliency program will help your business maintain sustained business operations and stay afloat even during times of crisis.

At Adept Solutions, we want to talk to you about the risks you face in this battle for your data and its protection. We want to help you become more resilient in your business. If this is of interest to you, give us a call at 530-751-5100.