According to a report by CyberSeek, there are just over 1.3 million employed cybersecurity professionals in the U.S, but more than 500,000 positions remain unfilled. This talent gap is exacerbated by an increase in the frequency and veracity of cyberthreats.
However, you can shield your business from much of the impact of the shortage of cybersecurity talent using automation. Automation enables you to leverage your existing cybersecurity talent, focusing their efforts on only strategic and high-value activities. Let’s explore how you can use automation to optimize your cybersecurity posture in this challenging environment.
How Automation Addresses Talent Shortage in Your Organization
Automation is a critical strategy, especially if you want to mitigate a shortage of talent in your business. It offloads mundane and repetitive tasks to scripts and tools, allowing you to leverage your existing talent efficiently. Let’s explore how this works:
Reduces Manual Workload
Cybersecurity tools can automate plenty of mundane tasks, including monitoring for suspicious behavior, sifting through security alerts and sorting log files. Automating these tasks frees up countless hours spent by your staff on manual processes. Instead, they can use this time for active threat hunting and strategic planning.
It also reduces your need for extra personnel for manual tasks, enabling them to focus on data analysis and other critical tasks.
Improves Efficiency and Scalability
With an increase in volume, velocity and variety of cyberthreats, you need more efficient solutions. Automation allows you to manage large numbers of devices across multiple environments, including IT, OT and IoT systems.
As your operations increase, you can scale your operations. For instance, you can use cloud-based automation to track medical devices and monitor patients across large medical facilities. That allows you to respond to growing threats without increases in staffing.
Enhances Cost-Effectiveness and Security at Scale
Automation can help you curb the ever-increasing costs of human labor while ensuring scalable security in your business. Leveraging tools for detailed cybersecurity analysis in your organization reduces your need for extensive hiring.
It helps your business reduce reliance on cybersecurity professionals even as the talent gap continues to grow. Automating processes also ensures your business systems stay secure as you search for the ideal cybersecurity professional for your needs.
Improves Talent Retention and Job Satisfaction
Automating repetitive tasks in your business reduces burnout, enabling you to retain key cybersecurity and IT staff. It cuts tedious backend work, keeping your team focused on high-value projects that leave them more fulfilled at the workplace.
A more engaged IT workforce also reduces the risk of human error, because automation standardizes processes. Doing this leads to more reliable and secure outcomes.
Tasks Your Business Can Automate
Many everyday cybersecurity tasks in your business can be automated using scripts and specialized tools. Let’s explore some prime examples.
Vulnerability Scanning
You can automate vulnerability scanning, giving your business several operational and strategic advantages. For instance, automated scans provide and automate general oversight of your business systems. It detects misconfiguration, outdated software and known vulnerabilities, reducing your window of exposure.
It also enables you to detect and remediate threats and vulnerabilities faster. Automated vulnerability scanning also helps you identify missing patches and applies them automatically, mitigating potential threats promptly.
It also gives you comprehensive coverage, uncovering potential issues that manual checks often overlook, including rare and complex vulnerabilities.
Log Analysis
Manual log analysis can be time-consuming, and is often prone to human error because of the vast volumes of complex log data involved. Automation increases your speed and efficiency in log analysis.
For example, automated log analysis tools can process large swaths of complicated logs in near real-time speeds, enabling you to identify and remediate security issues faster. It also comes with reduced human error, enabling you to flag unusual system behavior and security events as soon as they occur.
You can now monitor your logs 24/7, even when your IT staff are out of the office. These solutions also scale with your on-site business systems, expanding even to cloud and hybrid environments.
Credential Audits
Manual credential audits are often tiresome and resource intensive. They often are impractical at scale, and may need more cybersecurity staff to succeed. Instead, using automation can be beneficial in several ways.
First, it ensures you receive rapid alerts for suspicious activity. This includes unauthorized login attempts and potential brute force attacks. These alerts enable you to take timely action, remediating potential intrusion threats early. Automated tools also track credential changes, keeping you updated on policy violations in real time.
Credential audits also enable you to keep detailed audit logs and customizable reports which can support forensic analyses and simplify audits for regulatory compliance.
Patch Management
Automated patch management can be beneficial in ensuring your business systems promptly detect and deploy patches as soon as they are available. Doing this drastically reduces the window during which attackers can exploit newly discovered loopholes, reducing your susceptibility to zero-day attacks.
It can also reduce downtime periods in your business by installing updates and patches during off-peak hours. Sometimes, these automated tools can apply patches without rebooting, ensuring business continuity.
Patch management solutions also keep you compliant with many regulatory frameworks applied globally, including PCI DSS, HIPAA, ISO 27001. Automated solutions maintain logs, generate reports, and provide audit trails, simplifying compliance and reducing the risk of penalties.
Backups
Automated backups are fundamental to the success of modern businesses, especially at reducing risk and maximizing operational efficiency. When implemented correctly, automated backups reduce the loss of data because of human error. Your business no longer experiences losses from missed backups, configuration mistakes, or incomplete data capture.
When set to run during off-peak hours, it optimizes how you use resources. You face fewer network disruptions and system failures leading to better results. Additionally, you can scale automated backups to handle hundreds or thousands of systems and cloud workloads with little additional administrative burdens.
Automated backups also support other systems in your IT environment. For instance, you can now generate automated logs faster and produce comprehensive system reports to show you meet regulatory data protection requirements.
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