Across the COVID-19 pandemic, the world has seen instances of cybercrime skyrocket, increasing 600% over the last year. With attackers exploiting vulnerabilities with more regularity than ever before, your business needs to do everything it can to prevent malicious infiltration. That’s where continuous security validation (CVS) comes in.
One of the most effective ways of defending against attackers is to ensure that your company has an effective cybersecurity network. While you can create layers of defenses, many people are left in the dark whether they actually work. If they don’t, or there are weak points, organizations often only realize after it’s far too late, and a data leak has already occurred.
Reasons like these are why continuous security validation is essential for your business. In this article, we’ll be:
- Breaking down what continuous security validation is
- Discussing potential vulnerabilities your site could have
- Covering the main benefits of integrating continuous security validation into your company
Let’s get right into it.
What is continuous security validation?
Continuous security validation is the ongoing process of testing out the cybersecurity of a website. Instead of manually running traditional red team simulated digital attacks, continuous security validation is an automatic process. Not only does this automation make updating security measures more efficient, but it also catches things that human error may slip by.
The aim of continuous security validation is to double-check that all the various security systems that a company employs are working as efficiently as possible. Considering that these processes are automatic, you’ll continually be able to run an in-depth analysis of your security systems, finding vulnerabilities as new third-party updates or internal changes create new inconsistencies.
By moving through the MITRE Attack Framework, a continuous security validation system is able to routinely test the most common methods that an attacker would use to penetrate a site. This framework is formed of 14 categories, each with a range of 9-40 techniques that a hacker could potentially use to gain access to your site.
As you can see, with the sheer number of possible techniques, allowing your human security team to test them all out would take an incredible amount of time and open the door for mistakes. When run automatically, you’re able to work around the clock to keep your business safe.
Benefits of Continuous Security Validation
Once you’ve decided to incorporate CSV into your business, you’ll begin to reap a range of benefits. Alongside keeping your business safe from cyberattacks, you can expect:
- Boosted Brand Reputation
- Develop a Cyber Threat Model
- Decreased Spending
Let’s break these down further.
Boosted Brand Reputation
The last thing a customer expects when they register with a business is for all of their personal and financial data to be stolen. When your business is infiltrated by malware, you’re putting all of your customer information at risk. Companies that are breached and have their customer information stolen often face severe backlash from their customers.
There is no easier way to lose the trust of your customers than being the cause of having their data stolen. Whether that be their personal data, their passwords, or critical private data, customers will quickly lose faith in your business.
By investing in continuous security validation, you’re ensuring that your customers’ data is as safe as possible. Over time, without breaches, your customers will increasingly trust your business. With this comes a boost to your business’ reputation, ensuring that your company is valued and trusted for years to come.
Develop a Cyber Threat Model
Running analysis on your security systems will typically result in a range of vulnerabilities being established. These vulnerabilities and what you do to respond to them are known as your company’s Cyber Threat Model.
By establishing a list of potential weak points in your business, you’ll then be able to set your security team on fixing these problems. Once they have a clear map of what needs to be fixed, the speed at which they can improve your cybersecurity systems is increased significantly.
Through the development of a cyber threat model with continuous security validation, you’ll be providing a map for your security team to better your business’ security systems.
Decreased Spending
Recent data demonstrates that companies spent, on average, $2.4 million USD a year on recovering after a malware attack. Considering that the number of malware attacks across the globe is rising year-on-year, with an average jump of an additional 200 million per year over the past three years, this number will only continue to grow.
Over time, your business will be spending more and more money on recovering after it is attacked online. Due to this, by investing in a CVS system, you’ll be able to prevent attacks and save your business money.
Although establishing a security system will cost, the amount you’re saving due to the defense provided will vastly outweigh this cost. Additionally, when considering the benefits to your customers and your brand image, the respective value of cybersecurity defense increases even more.
If you’re looking to save your business money, investing in cybersecurity is one of the most effective ways of doing so.
Final Thoughts on Continuous Security Validation
From exposing vulnerabilities in your company’s security to giving your team a map towards fixing them, continuous security validation is essential in the modern world. With an increasing number of cyberattacks launched every day, the need to invest in your business security is only increasing.
From saving your business money in the long run to ensuring your customers’ data is always safe, continuous security validation should be an integral part of your cybersecurity systems.
