Organizations face an ever-growing array of cyber challenges. The traditional manual approaches to security are no longer sufficient to combat the cultivated tactics employed by the modern malicious actor. This is where the transformative potential of security automation comes into play. By harnessing the power of automation, organizations can empower their security teams to detect and respond to threats with unparalleled efficiency.
In this blog, we will dive into the world of security automation and explore its inner workings. We will uncover real-life use cases where security automation delivers tangible benefits, enabling organizations to streamline processes, boost productivity, and fortify their overall security posture.
Join us as we will delve into the core principles that underpin security automation in the GRC sector. By integrating diverse security automation tools and technologies, security automation platforms offer a unified ecosystem that maximizes the effectiveness of GRC operations. We will explore how this seamless integration enhances collaboration, optimizes resource allocation, and facilitates operational resilience.
Let’s discover how automation empowers security teams to proactively stay ahead of cyber threats.
Automation Boosts the Entire Security Ecosystem
IBM estimates that human error is to blame for 95% of information security errors. Automation is a powerful mechanism that all but cuts out the risk of human error and transforms the processes and operations involved in a wide array of security-related activities. We’ll explain some of those processes below.
Automated Risk Assessments
- Integrate with various data sources within the company’s IT infrastructure, such as asset inventories and vulnerability scanners
- Analyze data from these sources to identify potential risks and vulnerabilities across the organization’s systems and applications
- Generate risk reports, highlighting the critical areas that require attention and prioritizing them based on severity and impact.
- Workflows can be set up to trigger notifications and assign tasks to the appropriate teams for risk remediation.
Automated Compliance Functions
- New requirements for compliance standards are automatically updated on automated platforms
- Continuously monitor the organization’s systems, configurations, and policies to ensure compliance with these standards
- Provide automated checks and validations against the required controls and requirements of the relevant regulations
- Generate compliance reports and dashboards, giving a clear view of the organization’s compliance status, security gaps, and recommended actions for remediation
Automated Third-Party Risk Management Solutions
- Streamline third-party risk assessments, allowing organizations to efficiently evaluate the security controls and vulnerabilities of their third-party vendors
- Facilitate the collection and analysis of relevant security information from vendors, streamlining the due diligence process and ensuring comprehensive risk evaluation
- Enable continuous monitoring, allowing organizations to proactively identify and address any emerging risks or compliance gaps
- Feature a centralized platform for communication and collaboration with vendors, streamlining the exchange of risk-related information and ensuring clear communication channels
Automated Risk Scoring and Remediation
- Automatically calculate risk scores based on predefined criteria, providing a standardized and objective assessment of the level of risk associated with each vendor
- Integrating with ticketing systems and workflow engines allows organizations to automate the tracking and resolution of identified risks, ensuring timely remediation efforts
Automated Reporting and Analytics
- Security automation platforms offer customizable reporting capabilities, allowing the company to generate tailored reports for different stakeholders, such as executives, auditors, or regulatory bodies
- They provide meaningful insights into security metrics, trends, and performance indicators through interactive dashboards and visualizations
Start Getting Value With
Centraleyes for Free
See for yourself how the Centraleyes platform exceeds anything an old GRC
system does and eliminates the need for manual processes and spreadsheets
to give you immediate value and run a full risk assessment in less than 30 days
Revealing the Secrets of Security Automation with a Real-Life Use Case
Meet SecureCorp, a global financial services company trusted by millions of customers worldwide. As a company operating in a highly regulated industry, SecureCorp faces very strict compliance requirements. With an extensive network of third-party vendors, ensuring compliance and effectively mitigating risks across the ecosystem was becoming overwhelming
To address these challenges, SecureCorp decided to implement a comprehensive security automation platform that specializes in GRC (Governance, Risk, and Compliance) tasks and third-party risk management. By leveraging the power of automation, SecureCorp wished to streamline its processes, improve efficiency, and strengthen its overall security posture.
With the new security automation solution in place, SecureCorp was now able to automate its GRC tasks, including policy management, risk assessments, and compliance monitoring. The platform enabled SecureCorp to define and enforce security policies across the organization, automatically assessing risks associated with various business activities, and continuously monitoring compliance with regulatory standards. This automation significantly reduced the taxing burden that was weighing down the security team, allowing them to focus on higher-value strategic initiatives.
Furthermore, SecureCorp was able to leverage the security automation platform to enhance its third-party risk management processes. The platform integrated with external vendor management systems, enabling SecureCorp to automate the assessment of third-party security controls, monitor their compliance, and identify any potential risks or vulnerabilities.
The security automation platform also provided SecureCorp with real-time insights and comprehensive reporting capabilities. Dashboards and customizable reports offered a holistic view of the organization’s risk landscape, highlighting areas of concern and enabling informed decision-making. This data-driven approach empowered SecureCorp’s executives and security teams to proactively address emerging risks, allocate resources effectively, and drive continuous improvement in their overall security posture.
As a result of implementing security automation, SecureCorp experienced a significant reduction in manual effort and an increase in operational efficiency. By automating GRC tasks and third-party risk management processes, SecureCorp ensured consistent compliance, enhanced risk visibility, and effective management of its extensive network of vendors. This proactive and streamlined approach also enhanced customer trust and reinforces its reputation as a reliable and secure financial services provider.
Security automation is transforming the operations of organizations like SecureCorp, enabling them to automate GRC tasks and effectively manage third-party risks. By embracing automation, organizations can improve efficiency, reduce manual effort, and enhance their overall security posture. SecureCorp’s success story serves as a compelling example of how security automation can revolutionize GRC processes and bolster the resilience of businesses in the face of evolving cyber threats.
What is SOAR?
Security Automation is the second of three security concepts, combined as the acronym: SOAR. Gartner introduced the SOAR (Security Orchestration, Automation, and Response) concept as a stack of compatible software solutions and tools that allow organizations to facilitate and automate security processes in these three areas:
- Threat and vulnerability management
- Incident response
- Security operations automation
SOAR empowers security teams by automating and integrating a complex stack of digital technology and processes and requires the intervention of human team players only at the point when their intervention is needed. A SOAR platform can help businesses absorb input data from internal and external sources, process that data into actionable strategies, create workflows to respond to incidents throughout the incident lifecycle, address security gaps, and automate alert responses.
How Does Security Orchestration Work?
Security orchestration is the first of the SOAR acronym. Orchestration refers to the coordination of the sequence of a security plan, including incident identification, analysis, response, and ultimately recovery. It ensures that all security and non-security tools are synced, whether automating vulnerability scanning and reporting processes or alerting the IT department of flagged incidents that need human attention.
Ultimately, security orchestration increases the integration of a security defense system, allowing teams to maximize the value of people, processes, and tools.
Automate and Orchestrate Cyber Risk Management with Centraleyes
Leveraging the power of automation and orchestration, the Centraleyes cloud-based platform can be described as “GRC done right”. Learn about our unparalleled GRC platform where you can:
- automate your cyber risk management and compliance tasks to save valuable time and resources
- collect data with pre-loaded smart questionnaires, automated workflows, and fast data aggregation
- generate amazing reports with the most relevant data that will help you make smarter strategic decisions with the click of a button
Schedule a demo today!
Start Getting Value With
Centraleyes for Free
See for yourself how the Centraleyes platform exceeds anything an old GRC
system does and eliminates the need for manual processes and spreadsheets
to give you immediate value and run a full risk assessment in less than 30 days
