8 Best Practices in Cyber Supply Chain Risk Management to Stay Safe (Clone)
In this blog post, we'll discuss how every business faces four different types of threats to their software supply chains. Use these 8 best practices...
4 min read
Arnon Trabelsi
:
Jan 26, 2023 10:58:01 PM
A cybersecurity framework is a group of documents outlining guidelines, security-related standards, and best practices to help organizations manage and protect their assets from cybersecurity threats. Any InfoSec framework aims to prepare organizations and minimize the potential risk of vulnerabilities by identifying and remediating them.
Example cybersecurity frameworks include the NIST cybersecurity framework, the ISO 27001 framework, the Cybersecurity maturity model (CMMC) developed by the US Department of Defense (DoD), as well as Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS). Legit Security has aggregated many of these frameworks together into best-practices that can reduce software supply chain risk dramatically.
The NIST Cybersecurity Framework (NIST CSF) is a set of guidelines developed to improve cybersecurity risk management in critical infrastructure by relevant stakeholders to protect increasingly connected and complex systems, putting the United States’ security, economy, and public safety at risk. The core competencies of NIST are aligned with the 5 NIST functions which are Identify, Protect, Detect, Respond and Recover. These five security functions are ever-increasingly relevant to organizations in any sector or community. We will deep-dive into each one of them and identify the most critical aspects of protecting any organization.
The first function of the NIST CSF, is to identify the assets that are critical to the organization and understand their risks (a.k.a. NIST asset management). The key activities that take place during this phase are:
2. Protect
The second function of the NIST CSF is to protect the organization's critical assets from cybersecurity threats. This includes implementing safeguards such as security controls and protocols to protect critical services and prevent unauthorized access to sensitive information. The key activities that should be performed during this phase as a continuation of the NIST asset management are:
3. Detect
The third function of the NIST CSF is to detect cybersecurity incidents as they occur. This includes implementing monitoring and detection systems that can alert the organization to potential threats and allow it to respond quickly. The processes that are put in place during this phase help determine how proactive threat detections are inside the organization. The key processes that should take place during this phase are:
4. Respond
The NIST CyberSecurity Framework's fourth function is responding to cybersecurity incidents when they occur. This includes having a well-defined incident response and escalation plan in place to ensure that the organization can effectively respond to and recover from an incident. It also gives the organization the power to remediate quickly and effectively and minimize potential damage should an attack occur. It is the third layer in the protect, detect, respond triad, which is the motto by which most, if not all, InfoSec frameworks require organizations to abide by. The activities that ideally take place during this phase are:
5. Recover
The fifth and final function of the NIST CSF is focused on identifying activities that will help restore resilience and recover from a cybersecurity incident. This includes implementing measures to restore normal operations and mitigate the impact of the incident on the organization. The efforts put forth by an organization on the recovery component will directly affect their ability to contain the impact of a cybersecurity incident and minimize potential damage. Although this function is in addition to the Protect, Detect, Respond triad, it is one of the most important core competencies of NIST, as it will determine the size of the damage that a potential cybersecurity incident will have on an organization. The key activities that should take place during this phase are:
The initial purpose of NIST CSF was to help secure the United States’ critical infrastructure. However, we can more clearly see that this framework is relevant to any and all organizations that need to secure their operating environment from a broad range of cybercriminals. In the past, security was traditionally considered at the end of the Software Development Lifecycle (SDLC). Today’s increasingly hostile cybersecurity environments along with businesses’ increased dependence on digital services demand that organizations also put the utmost attention on security across the pre-production development environment and SDLC by abiding to an IT security framework such as NIST CSF. As previously mentioned, the Protect, Detect, and Respond operating model is a pillar of this framework. It should be the motto by which any organization that wishes to protect itself from cybersecurity threats, creates its cyber security plan.
The role of an InfoSec framework is to help organizations secure their environment by providing a set of guidelines and safeguards that they should follow. Although The 5 NIST functions, namely Protect, Identify, Detect, Respond, and Recover are similar to other top security frameworks, they contain a number of critical procedures that help minimize the effect of cybersecurity incidents on organizations of any size. In addition to these guidelines, Legit Security has devised a set of 10 steps that will help any organization secure its software supply chain, an increasingly important component to securing organizations’ overall digital business models.
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