White paper

Modernize your cybersecurity
now: 10 reasons why and10 ways how
16 November 2023

Copyright © 2023 Gen Digital Inc.
All rights reserved. Avast is part of Gen™.

Let’s face it. Your organization is probably not doing all it could be to secure your users and IT
resources. You know all about the high-profile hacks and exploited vulnerabilities, and you’reof course concerned. But security is not the only thing consuming your organization’s limited
resources, and besides, you haven’t been seriously breached. So far, anyway.
As other companies have learned the hard way, hope is a valuable human trait, but it’s not a firm
foundation for a security strategy. Fortunately, there are compelling reasons to focus on improving
your enterprise’s security and steps you can start taking today to do so significantly.

10 Reasons to Modernize Your Cybersecurity Now
1

Reduce risk

2

Minimize IT and security costs

3

Protect in silence4

See more, know more, and protect more

5

Boost agility

More effective, layered, and pervasive security will provide better protection for yourusers and IT resources. This reduces multiple risks, such as the risk of being breached orfailing an audit.

The 2015 Cost of Data Breach Study, conducted by Ponemon Institute and sponsoredby IBM, surveyed more than 1,500 IT, compliance, and information security practitioners
at 350 organizations in 11 countries. The study found that the average consolidated
total cost of a data breach is $3.8 million, a 23 percent increase since 2013. Furthermore,
the cost incurred for each lost or stolen record containing sensitive and confidential
information increased six percent from a consolidated average of $145 to $154.
Improved security also reduces the time and money required to remediate successfully
exploited vulnerabilities, and enables better and more frequent cost-curbing automation.

Modern, truly effective security is pervasive, ubiquitous, and invisible, with little to no
impact on user productivity or business operations. The ability to improve security
without disruption is essential to user satisfaction and the broad adoption of newfeatures and tools.

Maximum protection requires maximum visibility into and knowledge about your IT
environment and its security posture. Only modern, integrated tools can provide this,empowering you to deliver the best possible security across your environment andorganization.

Your organization must become and remain agile to survive and thrive competitively.
Simply put, there is no agility without comprehensive, consistent security.

Modernize Your Cybersecurity Now: 10 Reasons Why and 10 Ways How2

6Increase enterprise resilience
A 2013 Ponemon Institute study sponsored by Emerson Network
Power found that data center downtime costs approximately $7,900
every minute. A 2014 study conducted by Avaya found that eachincident of downtime costs between $140,000 and $540,000,
depending on the size and type of enterprise affected. And a 2015
survey by Kaspersky Lab and B2B International found that it cancost from $38,000 to $551,000 dollars to recover from a single
cybersecurity breach. Statistics such as these build resilience that is, your company’s ability to minimize planned and unplanned
downtime - an absolute necessity.

7

Develop trustworthiness

8

Enable user-centric security

9

Operationalize security

Emerson Network
Power found that data
center downtime costs
approximately $7,900
every minute. A 2014
study conducted by Avaya
found that each incident ofdowntime costs between$140,000 and $540,000,depending on the size andtype of enterprise affected.

Edelman, the world’s largest PR firm, surveyed some 33,000 people
for its 2015 Trust Barometer. Some 63 percent of respondents said
they simply will not do business with those they do not trust, while
80 percent said they only do business with trustworthy people andcompanies. And without modern, effective security, it is difficult orimpossible to assure and demonstrate trustworthiness.

Modern, user-centric IT focuses less on devices, files, and tools,
and more on the user experience. To achieve user-centric IT, yourcompany needs user-centric security—layered, integrated protectionof all authorized users, resources, connections, and devices.

Modern security management is less reactive and tactical, andmore operationally focused and proactive. At larger organizations,operations personnel are increasingly performing security-relatedfunctions, enabling security specialists to focus more sharply
on more complex and strategic issues. For small and mid-sizedorganizations, the trend is to move away from reactive “firefighting”
and toward continuous delivery of new and improved security
measures and more effective, proactive security operations (or“SecOps”).

Modernize Your Cybersecurity Now: 10 Reasons Why and 10 Ways How3

for the future
10 Prepare
According to the Verizon 2015 Data Breach Investigations Report, some 70 percent

of malware activity a decade ago was accounted for by only seven families or typesof malware. By 2014, that 70 percent of malware activity was distributed across 20
different malware types. During this same period, malware evolved significantly, fromemail “worms” to “stealthy command-and-control botnet membership, credential theft,and some form of fraud.” That same study estimates that five malware events take place
every second of every day. Only modern, layered, user-centric security can provide theprotection and adaptability your company needs today and will need tomorrow.

10 Ways to Modernize Your Cybersecurity Now
Implement consistently timely and comprehensive patching for all of
your critical:

1

Operating systems

2

Third-party applications
-and-

3

Devices throughout your network, whether they’re local, remote,or mobileModernize Your Cybersecurity Now: 10 Reasons Why and 10 Ways How4

4

Establish non-intrusive, non-disruptive application
whitelisting (and blacklisting, where needed)
If you do nothing more than the four steps above, you can make great
strides toward improving security and protection at your organization.

5

Automate as much of your proven patch and security
management processes as possible
This will maximize the consistency of execution and scalability of
those processes.

6

Integrate proactive patch management into and withall of your organization’s other significant IT initiatives,
especially those focused on IT Asset Management(ITAM), IT Operations Management (ITOM), or IT
Service Management (ITSM)

According to the Australian
Signals Directorate, up to85% of targeted attacks

can be prevented bywhitelisting, patching operating
systems and third-party
applications, and restricting
administrative privileges.

According to the U.S. National
Vulnerability Database, 86%of reported vulnerabilities

come from third-party
applications.

Layered, effective, user-centric security is essential to the success ofsuch efforts.

7Engage, educate, and motivate users to understandthe criticality of effective security
Your users are your first and last lines of defense. Comprehensive,effective, user-centric security seeks to protect them from being
victims of malefactors and conduits of wrongdoing. It also encourages
users (including customers) to report incidents and suspicious
behaviors to IT support, security, or both, as soon as possible.

8Don’t do it alone
Companies are increasingly deciding that the importance and risingdemand for effective IT security is too much to be left in the handsof IT and security teams alone. Many are also separating securitybudgets and activities from mainstream IT, spreading those budgets,efforts, and awareness across the entire organization. Some wellknown, highly respected companies are on record as “crowdsourcing”
security information and intelligence. You can start by engaging
colleagues in other departments within your own organization.

According to the Verizon 2015
Data Breach Investigations
Report, 99.9% of theexploited vulnerabilities
in 2014 were compromised
more than a year after thevulnerability was published.

A Ponemon Institute/IBM survey of some 200
customers who have beenbreached found that only

45% of those breaches
were caused by malicious
activities or software. The
other 55% were causedby operational mistakes,inadvertent errors bylegitimate users, or problems
with systems.

Modernize Your Cybersecurity Now: 10 Reasons Why and 10 Ways How5

9Use intelligence about your environment and tailored reports toidentify and prioritize threats, to promote and encourage support ofsecurity initiatives, and to drive and support security-related decisions
Infrastructure intelligence and reports based on “real-life” data from your own environment
can often be the most persuasive and effective communications tools with your colleagues
within and beyond your IT and security teams.

to make continuing education as an evolution of security at your10 Strivecompany a priority for everyone
As Gartner analyst Lawrence Pingree told The New York Times in October 2015,“Thereare 600 million individual files known to be good, and a malware universe of about 400
million files. But there’s also 100 million pieces of potentially unwanted adware, and 200
million software packages that just aren’t known. It takes a lot of talent to figure out
what’s normal and what isn’t.”
You have no way of knowing if and when any of those 400 million known malware files
may be targeted at your organization - if one of them hasn’t been so already. And despiteorganizations spending some $30 billion annually on security tools, vulnerabilities
and threats turn into actual breaches every day. By modernizing your IT security tools
and processes, you and your team can materially improve security in ways that extend
protections today and prepare effectively for the future, whatever it may hold.

Avast Business - All-in-one cybersecurity for themodern workplace
Avast Business offers multi-layered protection to safeguard your users and IT resources against
the most sophisticated threats. Solutions include next-gen antivirus, automated patch testing,deployment, and management for Microsoft Windows systems and third-party applications,cloud backup, secure web gateways, zero trust network access, and more.
Our solutions are integrated in a single security platform. This enables rapid automation of bothsecurity and IT management policies, and delivers unequaled visibility across IT security andmanagement activities.
Avast Business’ security platform also delivers comprehensive, configurable reports anddashboard options. These help to sharpen risk and threat visibility, ease compliance withregulations and policies, and improve your overall security posture. For more information contact
your Avast Business Account Manager or visit www.avast.com/business.

Modernize Your Cybersecurity Now: 10 Reasons Why and 10 Ways How6