5 Considerations for Planning Your 2020 Cyber Security Budget
Despite all the advances made in security over the past decade, it still takes organizations 15 times longer to close critical vulnerabilities than it does for attackers to weaponize and exploit them. And considering 2019 was a disaster in terms of cybersecurity news with one or more major stories breaking weekly, organizations will continue to become more and more vulnerable as we approach the new year.
The news is not going to stop in 2020. We should be prepared to see major cyber security breaches that threaten enterprises. What’s the cause of these major enterprise-threatening breaches? Known vulnerabilities with available remediation. Corporations will have no choice but to radically accelerate the speed at which they harden their endpoints. Data shows that adversaries weaponize vulnerabilities within seven days once they’ve been disclosed. The most resilient companies will adopt a new best-in-class response threshold of 24 hours for zero-day vulnerabilities and 72 hours for other critical exposures.
What can your organization do to plan your 2020 cybersecurity budget and be better positioned in the new year? We offer the following recommendations for planning your security investments based on recent 2020 cybersecurity predictions.
1. Continue to invest in remediating known cyber security breaches and vulnerabilities
According to Gartner 99% of vulnerabilities that will be exploited in 2020 will not be zero-days, but rather known exploits at least one year old. Be sure your 2020 cybersecurity budget includes funding for fixing the vulnerabilities you know already exist.
Consider investing in technologies that simplify your ability to view the vulnerability statuses of all your corporate devices from a single interface. Look for patching and configuration management tools that work across operating systems and provide third party patching support to allow you to optimize IT workflows and improve productivity.
2. Evaluate cyber security tools that allow you to act faster than adversaries
In order for organizations to radically accelerate the speed at which they harden their endpoints, they must consider tools that allow them to quickly gauge their corporate exposure to vulnerabilities, and then be able to remediate within the recommended 24/72 response threshold. Automation that delivers machine speed for endpoint hardening is required if organizations are to achieve defensible outcomes.
3. Increase your investment in IT orchestration
Address the cyber security skills gap with tools that automate your endpoint hardening and streamline your strategy for hardening your endpoints. Automating processes such as patching software and operating systems can dramatically reduce the burden on an already overworked security staff and reduce your organization’s cybersecurity risk.
Additionally, choosing technologies with open extensible automation architectures provides you the flexibility to create any task you can imagine and allow you to automate and maintain these custom worklets across all your corporate devices.
4. Choose cyber security vendors based on the strength of their partnerships
Synergy is key in managing your corporate security posture. Invest in vendors that play well together and complement each other’s capabilities to solve specific cybersecurity challenges. Choosing vendors who already demonstrate strong partnerships with industry leaders can lead to streamlined workflows, greatly reducing time to harden, detect, and respond.
5. Continue to capitalize on the economics of cloud computing
2020 is the year of completing your cloud migration. Beyond the total cost of ownership (TCO) advantages of using SaaS tools in the cloud versus maintaining on-premises platforms, moving to the cloud gives you momentum for more cutting-edge technologies like 5G, automation, machine learning, AI, autonomous devices, and more.
Cloud-native endpoint hardening platforms can reduce your operational overhead by 80% compared to traditional on-premises patch management tools. Calculate your total cost savings by migrating your on-premises patch management solution to the cloud.
About Automox Automated Patch Management
Facing growing threats and a rapidly expanding attack surface, understaffed and alert-fatigued organizations need more efficient ways to eliminate their exposure to vulnerabilities. Automox is a modern cyber hygiene platform that closes the aperture of attack by more than 80% with just half the effort of traditional solutions.
Cloud-native and globally available, Automox enforces OS & third-party patch management, security configurations, and custom scripting across Windows, Mac, and Linux from a single intuitive console. IT and SecOps can quickly gain control and share visibility of on-prem, remote and virtual endpoints without the need to deploy costly infrastructure.
Experience modern, cloud-native patch management today with a 15-day free trial of Automox and start recapturing more than half the time you're currently spending on managing your attack surface. Automox dramatically reduces corporate risk while raising operational efficiency to deliver best-in-class security outcomes, faster and with fewer resources.
