Cyber Security Audits and Managed Cybersecurity Services

A Computer Security Audit is a detailed study focusing on analyzing all the company's information systems, from networks, management programs, communications systems, servers, websites, databases, etc. In this detailed analysis, the structure and security measures, firewalls, etc., are studied and their management to know if the employees make good use of the systems. With the cybersecurity audit, we seek to find both internal and external vulnerabilities.

Cybersecurity audits allow us to know companies' current status in terms of protection, control, and security measures in their computer systems and the authority that employees have before them, and the possible risks.

Types of Security Audits

Internal security audit

The internal security audit tries to detect and mitigate the risks and weaknesses of the information system structure, locating the access routes of a possible internal attacker and calculating the consequences of suffering an attack.

It is performed by taking the role of a user who has access to its internal systems. He has credentials that allow him to access or because he has managed to escalate privileges through an attack.

It analyzes any attack vector that could lead to the theft of sensitive company information and offers solutions to reduce an internal attack's chances. To minimize the risks of such attacks, a privilege escalation system is implemented.

External security audit

The external security audit allows knowing the level of a company's external security and the risk it has when being on the Internet. The public services offered by a company or general information on the Internet can cause damage and intrusions in the systems.

This is done by taking the role of an external attacker who does not know the victim. Through various attacks, this is attempts to obtain private data or sensitive information, which can be manipulated to damage the victim's image.

It allows knowing the technical vulnerabilities of external systems, the consequences of someone taking advantage of them, and solutions to eliminate security threats in the company.

Penetration testing (pen-testing)

This is an entirely different type of security assessment from a vulnerability assessment. With a penetration test, the auditor uses standard attack methods to see if a system's security can be bypassed. If the auditor of such a penetration test cannot compromise the system by using common exploits, the system passes the test. Otherwise, if the system is compromised, the system fails the test.

Performing a penetration test: When you complete a penetration test, you simulate actual attacks that the company experiences from a real hacker. This means you will be building a set of penetration tools, which are programs used by hackers to compromise systems, break encryption, or exploit communication.

Benefits of cyber security audits

New technologies and software make day-to-day work more accessible. But they are also a potential security breach in which we share official documents, sensitive documentation, private data, etc., from which many people can benefit.

That is why knowing the current state of our systems and correcting possible vulnerabilities is essential to maintain a secure cyber-working environment.

Thanks to the computer security audits, we can know our systems' current situation, which is why more and more companies are deciding to audit their information systems.

Knowing this situation allows us to correct and eliminate the risks and vulnerabilities detected, offering better security levels to the company and revaluing the assets. This improves the company's image since you guarantee that all the daily information you work with is adequately protected.

Managed Cyber security Services

A few years ago, organizations protected their data and systems under a model that resembled a fortified castle: they were closed, with little communication with the outside world and well-defined boundaries. They were focused on compliance, and there was still a sense of achieving the desired "zero risk." The premise was: "if you do things right and follow the rules, nothing will happen to you."

This model has been besieged in the last ten years by four levers of transformation, which have meant that this strength has been overcome, and the cybersecurity paradigm has also undergone a transformation:

1. First, a new technological framework driven by digital transformation has brought a radically different approach. In the early days, the CISO could respond to hyper-connected users' demands, who required more and more potentially dangerous applications. However, today the demands come from all business areas, which request technologies such as cloud, mobility, IoT, DevOps, or others. These technologies were requested for time to market reasons or improve user experience, productivity, communication, etc.

Because it is precisely the executive level that proposes and demands these new technologies, driven by these business drivers, security teams can no longer say "no"; they must find a way to coexist this digital revolution with security requirements. The CISO has gone from being a stopper to becoming an enabler.

2. Secondly, the increase in the number, nature, and sophistication of cyberthreats: compared to a scenario at the beginning of the century in which threats were diffuse, atomized, they are now marked by globalization. They are international, pursue political and economic goals, and have a large number of resources (as in the case, for example, of the large cybercriminal group responsible for the attack dubbed Cobalt, which was dismantled last year in Alicante and whose fraud was estimated by Europol at more than 1 billion euros).

For "the good guys" (companies, security organizations, service providers, public entities...), it is tough to compete with this avalanche of resources available to criminal gangs or foreign intelligence agencies. This is where managed security services come in, provided mainly to large organizations for whom this model is an innovative and effective way to meet these challenges.

3. The third avenue of transformation is regulatory pressure. Of course, the authorities could not remain impassive, so regulatory mechanisms and compliance requirements have continued to grow in the right direction; yes, but at the same time, it has become a real sword of Damocles for companies. Another reason not to try to fight alone in the face of danger and to delegate experts to solve the problem.

As can be seen at a glance, the future is marked by an environment where cyber threats overwhelm the operational capacity of organizations. To meet this challenge, managed security services provide an outsourced protection model that is effective and efficient but adapted to each company's reality and business.