RSA 2020: 5 Tips for Centering the Human Element

We are one month out from RSA Conference 2020 and Fidelis is excited to be joining our industry peers in San Francisco. The theme of this year’s RSA Conference is especially interesting to us, as it focuses on the human element of cybersecurity. The human element is an often-overlooked aspect of modern cybersecurity, which tends to focus on the latest and greatest in emerging technologies. And while there are no magic quadrants or best-in-class designations for the human element of cybersecurity, it remains an extremely important component of an organization’s defensive strategy.

Cyber Security is Full of Human Challenges

Cyber terrains are rapidly expanding, driven by growing cloud applications, rising network traffic, additional endpoints, and a surge of BYOD devices – the list goes on and on. As a result, cybersecurity personnel have more to do than ever and organizations everywhere are overwhelmed with the growing number and sophistication of threats. The cyber skills shortage is a well-known problem across both industry and government, as is the ever-present problem of analyst alert fatigue.

This is because security philosophy and architecture have not been traditionally built with the human element in mind. As more an more technology has been added to security stacks (usually in the form of ad-hoc point solutions added to address the latest threat) it has become harder for security professionals to maintain holistic visibility of their environment. Blind spots begin to emerge as security products are incorporated into the stack without a guiding strategy for integrating new solutions with the rest of the security stack. On the flip side, many security products have overlapping capabilities, leading to unwanted redundancy that bombards security teams with an endless stream of duplicative alerts that must be painstakingly correlated and triaged.

Meanwhile, the cost of failure is higher than ever. According to Ponemon, the average cost of a data breach in the US is over $8 million. Threat actors are dwelling in networks for months at a time, with the average time to identify a threat clocking in at 197 days, and another 97 days to contain it after that. This should emphasize just how important it is to ensure that security architectures are working for, and not against, the cyber warriors at their core.

Equipping the Cyber Warrior

At Fidelis, this is why the cyber warrior is at the heart of our cybersecurity philosophy. We are a company rooted in a long history of cyber warriors, with expertise cultivated on the front lines of the intelligence and defense communities. We know firsthand how important it is to center the human element of cybersecurity.

The Fidelis platform is dedicated to arming cyber warriors with the tools they need to thrive on the frontlines of the cyber battlefield. Our strategy is focused on providing security experts with a decisive advantage by empowering them with the advanced capabilities and customization that they need to act in the face of constantly evolving threats.

So how can organizations position their cyber warriors for success? Here are 5 tips for putting the human element at the front and center of your security strategy:

1. Enable your Cyber Warriors to know the terrain better than your adversary: They can’t defend what they don’t know. Holistic visibility enables your security analysts to know the totality of the terrain they are defending and assists them by identifying critical assets and vulnerabilities so that they can focus their limited time on securing the assets most critical to your organization’s business operations.
2. Understand the attacker’s motives and objectives: Know the attacker’s tactics, techniques, and procedures and press that advantage. Arm your security analysts with actionable threat intelligence and high confidence alerts to enable them to anticipate the attackers next move and halt their attacks.
3. Engage the attacker prior to impact: Avoid the cost and impact from “too little and too late” defensive actions by engaging left of boom. Fidelis Network Traffic Analysis, Endpoint Detection and Response, and integrated Digital Forensics tools enable your security analysts to hunt for sophisticated adversaries operating in your networks and neutralize threats faster, eliminating expensive and time-consuming remediation and response activities.
4. Decide and act faster than the attacker: Level the playing field against attackers who are using automation. Fidelis’ Elevate platform provides flexibility to tailor detection and response rules, analytics and Machine Learning capabilities to give your security analysts advance notice of attacks, and automation to enable them to respond/block threats before damage can be done.
5. Shape the attacker’s experience: Dynamically alter the percentage of exploitable terrain to increase the cost, risk, and complexity of your adversaries operations. Fidelis’ Deception tools guide your security analysts in building automated and adaptive decoy networks – luring attackers to an environment where Fidelis tools can detect their presence, study their techniques, build high confidence alerts, and accelerate response. The end result is more actionable, high confidence alerts that eliminate analyst alert fatigue.

Visit Fidelis at RSA Conference 2020

If you are interested in learning more about how Fidelis helps your cyber warriors gain the decisive advantage over attackers, be sure to visit us at RSA at BOOTH #1441 to:

• Meet with a security specialist
• Catch an in-booth theater presentation from an expert
• Explore interactive demos on our security solutions
• Walk away with some great swag
• Enter our raffle for a chance to go home with a DJI Spark Drone – designed with intelligence flight control options, a mechanical gimbal and a camera with incredible image quality