How to Streamline Security Governance with the Right Platform

Security leaders have a lengthy list of priorities:

• You’ve got to ensure data resiliency procedures are in place and properly enforced.
• Make sure staff members are properly onboarded and off boarded according to protocol.
• Check that software is securely configured, updated and maintained.
• Ensure known threats and breaches are reported and addressed in a timely manner.

The list of responsibilities is long to the point of overwhelming, and time is short.

So the obvious question is: Is there a better way? How do you better protect and govern the organization without adding to the complexity?

These questions aren’t just about improvement and greater efficiency. They're also about risk tolerance, and accountability. A security governance framework answers them, and it begins with:

• Information and full disclosure
• Complete and unrestricted access to the data
• Supporting data and metrics ed to understand and oversee security processes

No security leader can afford to be dependent on others for access to the information and data required to do their job. As the head of cybersecurity, if you can’t dictate access to systems that impact the organization’s security posture, you cannot assume responsibility. Without access, you find the entire organization’s cybersecurity risk governance and management directives undermined.

Good Governance Starts with Access

The recently published NIST Cybersecurity Framework 2.0 places governance in the center of the preexisting five functions. This quite literally illustrates that governance underpins all other security efforts.

Related: How to Build a Strategic Foundation for Successful Security Governance

NIST points down a clear path: All security leaders must secure their ability to maintain and enforce security governance.

Effectively, this translates into direct access to the relevant data for all relevant systems, in real time. We will refer to this as ‘CISO omni-access.’ While this might unintentionally evoke nightmares of monstrous data lakes with uncontrollable dragons, it really shouldn’t. There are tried and true methods for implementing and enforcing governance using process mining techniques.

CISO omni-access is a necessary and undeniable prerequisite towards security governance. The best way security teams can securely provide extensive access to all relevant process data is to connect their systems to a security governance platform.

The platform then becomes the secure “hub” for syncing all the required data across all your tools and teams and it does it in near real time, removing any slow or manual tasks that could introduce more risk.

The platform then maps out processes and transparently expedites data access for future audits, vulnerability management, and any other business purpose.

The Foundation for Effective Security Governance

Gutsy’s data driven security governance platform is about extensive transparency. We built the platform to connect the dots between your myriad tools, and chart out your unique process workflows and variants. This provides direct visibility into the key aspects of every isolated case.

Gutsy’s case viewer saves hundreds of manual hours of data collection from disparate sources and interviews of staff members. Its event correlation capabilities produce a simpler way to browse and analyze exactly what happened in each case.

The information from all that data is then mapped out and captured in this easy-to-analyze flowchart and complete event detail:

Vulnerability Remediation Program Example

Multiple tools and services, and even bug bounty programs, are used to report the vulnerabilities in this example. Therefore, the funnel opening is large and diverse. Each case must be triaged and dealt with accordingly, depending on its severity, exposure, etc.

Gutsy’s case viewer highly simplifies the process of overseeing each case on an individual level. It looks at the particular initial report, remediation activities, and ultimate closure. The platform also places the case within the larger context from an organizational level. This function makes it possible to quickly compare teams and organizational interfaces.

Building Certainty with a Single Source of Truth

Many tools integrate with one another to help shave off some level of effort and consolidate tools to a few platforms. The true challenge comes in reducing everything into just a single source of truth.

The uncertainty principle cautions us that the act of measurement will itself interfere with the system being measured in unpredictable ways. This challenge is particularly noticeable when dealing with security services and tool stacks that keep getting more and more complex through automations and integrations that compound redundancy.

As a governance platform, Gutsy places itself above other tools, and is where your security strategy is truly designed, conceived, and overseen.

Want to learn more?

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