OTRS : Improve Response Times with Automated Security Processes

Automated security processes are the key to keeping businesses safer. From hospitals to MSPs, large enterprises to SMEs, local businesses to global ones - regardless of how your business is categorized, it is vulnerable to security breaches. That's simply a fact these days.

The positive news, however, is that security processes can help businesses avoid possible incidents and respond more quickly should an incident occur.

What is a security process?

A company's security process is the means by which a company establishes, implements and monitors rules and protocols that are intended to keep it safer. To say that it is a single process is misleading as 'security process' is an overarching concept that encompasses several aspects of corporate security. According to the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), this includes:

• Policy
• Awareness
• Access
• Monitoring
• Compliance
• Strategy

Is this different from cyber security processes?

Yes and no.

Oftentimes, in thinking about security, one's mind jumps to barbed wire fences and people patrolling the perimeter of a building. These days, however, there is just as much - if not more - threat made possible through digital means.

In either case, the same security process steps are appropriate. To protect the building, you might have a policy requiring access cards. You might train your people to carry them and not prop doors open. You would have someone in charge of controlling who gets an access card and monitoring door access logs. Perhaps there are penalties for not following the rules, and it all rolls up to an overriding strategy that states only employees are allowed to walk freely through the building.

The same applies in cyber security: These same subprocesses are addressed, but the activities are, naturally, different. You may have a policy that VPN access is required for remote employees, so you train employees on how and when to use it. You limit the number of people who can provide this access and keep an eye on logs. All of which is part of your strategy to reduce unauthorized network access.

Several reputable organizations suggest cybersecurity guidance that can help organizations think through and implement effective cybersecurity processes. Among these are the US government-sponsored NIST's cybersecurity framework and the international ISO/IEC 27000 information security standards.

How is this related to an automated process?

Regardless of whether you are talking about security processes in general or a subset of these, such as cybersecurity processes, a process is a specified series of steps that are performed in order, beginning with a specific event and ending with a defined result.

As a very simple example, consider the access badge from above. The process here might be:

• Employee is hired.
• A badge request is submitted.
• The request is approved.
• The badge is created.
• The employee starts work.
• The employee signs policy-required paperwork.
• The badge is given to the employee.

Passing the necessary information back and forth between security, IT, the hiring manager, etc. would require wasted time as emails were written, dates verified, etc. It could also result in errors (For example, the employee is starting on 09/10/21, and someone accidentally types 10/09/21. Now, the badge isn't prepared when the employee arrives.)

Automation takes all of these steps and puts as many as possible into a digital format. Then, as one step is completed, the What's more, automated processes can connect several systems and solutions, passing data from one to the next quickly and accurately.

Why use automated security processes?

One of the biggest benefits of automated security processes is that it ensures no process steps are missed. When you're relying on these defined processes to keep you safe, you certainly don't want people taking shortcuts. Since the steps are sequential, the system is prompting one step after another based on what happened before.