On November 10, 2022, the European Parliament passed a new legislative act, the Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA). DORA aims to enhance the cybersecurity of EU-based networks and information systems by strengthening security requirements and simplifying the reporting process. It places a particular emphasis on third-party information and communication technology providers and covers the financial sector, including banks, payment institutions, investment firms, and crypto asset service providers.
CTEM Helps Meet DORA Requirements
Continuous Threat Exposure Management, or CTEM, addresses DORA requirements for rapid reporting of cybersecurity incidents, visibility into an organization’s third-party dependencies, and the ability to respond to audit requests from regulators or customers. CTEM is a cybersecurity strategy that involves constantly exposing an organization’s networks, systems, and assets using various technologies, including simulated attacks, to identify vulnerabilities and weaknesses. CTEM helps organizations address some of the key requirements of the DORA directive, such as:
- Rapid Reporting of Cybersecurity Incidents: It enables organizations to detect and respond to cyber threats in real-time, reducing the time and effort needed to report major incidents to the relevant authorities. CTEM also provides a clear and consistent framework for incident reporting, ensuring compliance with the DORA standard.
- Visibility into an Organization’s Third-Party Dependencies: CTEM helps organizations map and monitor their external attack surfaces, including their third-party providers and partners. It can identify and prioritize the most critical risks posed by these dependencies, such as data breaches, third-party disruptions, and regulatory violations.
- Ability to Respond to Audit Requests from Regulators or Customers: It provides a comprehensive and up-to-date view of an organization’s security posture, as well as evidence of their remediation efforts. CTEM can also help organizations demonstrate their alignment with the best practices and benchmarks recommended by the DORA directive.
Traditional vulnerability management programs are no longer keeping up with expanding attack surfaces. Reducing exposure to growing threats using siloed security approaches is no longer viable. CTEM is a more effective path to stay ahead of sophisticated threats. CTEM’s security and risk management practices align with business goals to minimize risk, improve efficiency, and automate compliance. Organizations gain a continuous view of their vulnerability exposures, enabling them to make informed decisions and prioritize their resources to protect against their expanding threat landscape. CTEM provides a consistent, actionable security posture for remediation and improvement and follows governance, risk, and compliance mandates.
Ridge Security CTEM Support
Ridge Security’s RidgeBot and RidgeShield are security products and technology enablers for CTEM. As part of an integrated CTEM program, RidgeBot automates penetration testing using ethical hacking techniques, simulating human attackers to expose vulnerabilities that may become potential exploits. RidgeBot relentlessly locates risks and vulnerabilities across an enterprise network, documents findings, continuously measures results and effectiveness, and verifies vulnerabilities. RidgeBot automatically detects the attack surface, lists attack surfaces, and runs multiple tests to show a historical trend.
RidgeBot
- RidgeBot auto-discovers assets for management, enabling organizations to conduct automated penetration testing from an attacker’s point of view.
- Within DevOps and when apps and systems are in production, RidgeBot finds, assesses, prioritizes, and fixes a wide set of exposures before malicious actors discover them.
- Validation allows organizations to see what could happen during an attack, how their defenses would cope, and how well the processes would perform.
- Security health checks and scores provide a history of activities and trends with a snapshot of an organization’s exposure risk and security posture.
- RidgeBot ACE conducts simulated attack scenarios for endpoint security, data exfiltration, and Active Directory information reconnaissance.
RidgeShield
- Installed within cloud application workloads running on top of operating systems, RidgeShield agents protect an organization’s assets within cloud environments.
- It secures cloud workloads with security controls and continuous monitoring, using OS best practices from Microsoft and Linux.
- Exposure management capabilities look for deviations against baseline checks, and when deviations are found, alerts are sent to security teams.
Ridge Security’s advanced solutions help organizations strengthen their CTEM program to proactively protect assets against current and emerging threats. If you are looking for the right cybersecurity protections to support DORA and other regulations, help minimize risks, and enhance security resilience, contact us today to learn more.