Top Security Pain Points Revealed: Building Baselines, Cloud, and Visibility Among Concerns

Christian Wiens Director of Marketing

Christian Wiens is Director of Marketing at MixMode. He has 10+ years of experience as a cybersecurity professional. He has his BA from The University of California, Berkeley and resides in Austin, TX.

Effective modern network security needs to defend against an unprecedented number of threats. Today’s SecOps teams face both rudimentary hacking attempts and highly sophisticated, targeted attacks that pose serious safety and security risks.

There is a seemingly never-ending list of potential security solutions being marketing toward IT departments everywhere. Mixmode is meeting that challenge by systematically addressing threats and accurately reporting back to SecOps teams.

A recent survey performed by security research organization SANS, in partnership with IBM Security, gives practical insight into the threats plaguing security systems across the country. The “Effectively Addressing Advanced Threats” study analyzed the results of a security survey of 356 companies. The results reveal what is driving common threats and how they can best be eliminated.

Common Threats Faced by SecOps Teams

Account or Credential Hijacking and Privileged User Abuse

52 percent of respondents cited “account or credential hijacking” as a major risk for their operation. 49 percent cited the similar “privileged user abuse” category as a threat.

Hijackers who gain high-level access can disrupt network functionality, access and withdraw funds, and steal customer, employee, and proprietary data.

In fact, this type of data breach was at the heart of several prominent cyberattacks in recent months. Hackers used stolen account credentials to breach financial and customer data from Yahoo and Target.

Attacks Affecting Web-Based Tech

Over half the respondents reported they handled between 1 and 5 advanced threats in the previous 12 months. A few reported as many as 100. As the survey analysis report indicates, some industries are targeted more often, but no industry is fully immune from advanced threats.

Denial of Service attacks are a commonly mentioned pain point for SecOps teams. These attacks are especially problematic for organizations that rely on cloud data, remote access, or other internet-dependent activities.

Many organizations are literally unable to function as a result of a DoS attack.

Ransomware and crypto-mining expose modern-day vulnerabilities, as well. Ransomware, in particular, can wreak havoc on an organization. In addition to a potentially significant financial hit, these attacks tend to create negative publicity. In the case of municipal services, ransomware and DoS attacks can even impact essential public services like a city’s water supply.

The survey report indicates almost 1 in 5 organizations face data breaches involving cloud data or exposing exploits against their internet hosting provider.

It is clear that effective security solutions must include robust protocols for handling both on-prem and cloud-based network data.

Limitations of Typical Security Programs

The overarching theme here is a lack of visibility. In other words, when SecOps teams aren’t confident the entire network is being reviewed, analyzed, and reported on, they can’t adequately protect it.

The “Advanced Threats” survey asked companies to identify weaknesses in their current security solution setups.

Organizations cited several barriers to security effectiveness:

· Inability to understand the behavior of normal network baseline

· Lack of correlation across various streams

· Lack of multiple cloud environment analysis

· Inability to integrate existing security products with security analytics

Many organizations are operating under security systems that offer inadequate capabilities for handling today’s sophisticated cybersecurity threats. Yesterday’s security solutions cannot solve today’s security threats.

How Mixmode Is Addressing Modern SecOps Concerns

Mixmode gives SecOps teams the visibility tools they need to adequately protect their networks. We integrate the latest AI tech with robust, tested security protocols to deliver a product unlike any other in the cybersecurity space. Best of all, we can get you up to speed in a matter of days.

How does it work?

Our predictive AI builds a baseline snapshot of your network in about 7 days. This is an impressive feat – many similar programs can take a year or even two years to compile an accurate baseline.

Then, Mixmode AI dives deep to deliver incredibly detailed visibility into your network behavior. You’ll get insight into anomalies other programs routinely miss and a program that adapts and evolves along with your ever-changing network. Mixmode can analyze on-prem, cloud-based storage and applications, or a hybrid.

Mixmode returns data that goes well beyond the intel feeds supplied by typical security programs. Mixmode AI has detected nearly invisible network breaches that were missed by routine intel feeds.

Key Takeaways

Today’s security professionals are facing wide-ranging network threats that have the potential to devastate organizations from the inside out. Increased visibility into network behavior equips SecOps teams to do their jobs better.

With Mixmode AI, SecOps teams know more about their networks than ever before. They are able to make informed decisions about threats as they occur and to take effective preventative measures.

We’d love to help you enhance your SecOps capabilities through our advanced AI tech. Schedule a demo with a Mixmode network security expert today.