As technology rapidly advances, cyberattacksuch as malware and DDoS are becoming increasingly sophisticated, frequent, and concerning for businesses. These cyberattacks can cause significant losses for businesses, including decreased productivity, loss of revenue, theft of customer data, and high costs for infrastructure repairs, restoring reputation, and paying legal fines.
We understand how damaging these threats can be, but at the same time, IT infrastructure is becoming more difficult to manage, especially in terms of security. One of the main challenges in managing this infrastructure is the lack of visibility into potential threats, which can hinder a quick response to security incidents. In this situation, you need a risk mitigation strategy to help address various security threats and prevent business losses.
What is risk mitigation, and how can this strategy help you face various security threats and minimize business losses? Learn more below.
What is Risk Mitigation?
Risk mitigation involves various strategies to minimize risks from threats or disasters. Although it cannot eliminate threats, risk mitigation prepares you to handle unexpected incidents.
Several potential risks can harm a business, such as cyberattacks, natural disasters, financial uncertainty, legal issues, and human errors in management.
Why is Risk Mitigation Essential for Businesses?
Not all businesses are prepared to face unforeseen incidents in the future. When such incidents occur, they can cause significant financial losses or even force the company to shut down.
Simply put, risk mitigation serves as a protective shield for your business against operational disruptions, financial losses, and reputational damage. It also helps stakeholders understand potential risks and prepare appropriate handling strategies.
5 Best Practices in Risk Mitigation
There are several approaches you can apply to plan risk mitigation more effectively. Here are five steps:
1. Engage Company or Organization Stakeholders
Communicate risks to stakeholders in your company or organization, such as employees, managers, clients, and others, to prepare strategies.
2. Increase Risk Management Awareness
Security procedures and tools alone are insufficient to build a risk-aware culture. All roles within the company, from leadership to employees, must commit to and comply with risk management policies.
3. Provide Risk Management Tools
Monitor risk levels using specific tools such as Risk Assessment Frameworks.
4. Establish Clear Risk Management Policies
Provide easily understood and followed policies for all employees at various levels, including roles, responsibilities, and specific risk-handling procedures.
5. Monitor Potential Risks Regularl
Continuously update risk profiles so that businesses can adapt, respond to threats quickly, and protect operations wisely.
4 Types of Risk Mitigation Strategies
After learning about best practices, it’s time to explore the different types of risk mitigation strategies that can be implemented, either entirely or selectively.
1. Risk Avoidance
This strategy involves eliminating risky activities or conditions, such as avoiding unstable or high-risk markets.
2. Risk Transfer
Risk transfer involves shifting risk responsibility to another party, such as through insurance or contracts.
3. Risk Acceptance
This strategy is used when the risk is manageable and does not require intensive mitigation, allowing the company to focus on more significant risks.
4. Risk Monitoring
Continuously monitor risks and their impacts to identify changes that may require additional or adjusted strategies.
4 Risk Mitigation Processes
If you’ve grasped the best practices and strategy types, it’s time to understand the risk mitigation process. Here are four key steps:
1. Identify Risks
The first step is to understand what risks exist, such as data breaches, financial risks, natural disasters, or other incidents that could disrupt your business operations.
2. Conduct Risk Assessment
Next, assess each identified risk and measure its severity level.
3. Prioritize Risks
After assessment, rank the risks based on severity and impact, guiding your team on which risks to address first.
4. Monitor Risks
Continuously monitor risks to observe when their severity increases or decreases.
5. Implement Risk Mitigation Plan
After completing all previous steps, it’s time to implement the risk mitigation plan that must be executed by all company employees. Regular testing and analysis should be conducted throughout this process.
Also Read: Discover the Benefits of Trend Micro Vision One, an Attack Surface Risk Management Solution
For a more effective risk mitigation process, you should utilize proven solutions by combining advanced infrastructure and technologies like Dell servers, Palo Alto firewalls, and SolarWinds monitoring systems.
Dell, Palo Alto, and SolarWinds Technologies for Risk Mitigation Processes
Dell is a leading IT brand with a range of products, including reliable and advanced servers. Meanwhile, Palo Alto offers a firewall system that protects company networks by controlling data traffic between internal and external networks. Your mitigation process can also be enhanced with continuous monitoring through SolarWinds’ monitoring system, which can measure and analyze IT infrastructure performance.
Dell Servers
Dell servers act as a central data repository that integrates easily with various technologies, including Artificial Intelligence (AI), and is energy efficient.
Features:
- High Performance: Reliable, scalable servers
- Advanced Hardware Management: Complete tools for monitoring and managing hardware health
- Supports Virtualization: Compatible with various virtualization platforms
Palo Alto Firewall
Boost your network security with Palo Alto’s firewall. Acting as the first line of defense, Palo Alto promptly blocks suspicious network activities. The analysis results, such as firewall logs, are collected to detail various security risks and stored on the server.
Features:
- Advanced Threat Protection: High-security features like intrusion prevention and malware protection
- Application Awareness: Granular control over data traffic and application policies
- Centralized Policy Management: Integrated platform for managing security policies across the network
- User-ID Integration: Identifies users and applies policies based on identity
SolarWinds Security Information and Event Management (SIEM)
SolarWinds’ Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) system, integrated with Palo Alto’s firewall, enhances the log analysis results to identify attacks, anomalies, or other potential threats.
Features:
- Easy Collection and Normalization of Network Device and Machine Logs: With hundreds of out-of-the-box connectors to simplify the process of collecting, standardizing, and cataloging log and event data generated across your network.
- Customizable Visualizations and Dashboard: Quickly identify important or suspicious patterns in machine data with a wide variety of customizable visualizations and a flexible dashboard.
- Out-of-the-Box Security and Compliance Reporting Templates: Makes it easy to generate and schedule compliance reports quickly using over 300 report templates and a console
- Built-in Active Response: Security Event Manager can do much more than trigger email alerts, such as quarantining infected machines, blocking IP addresses, killing processes, and adjusting Active Directory® settings
Steps to Integrate Dell, Palo Alto, and SolarWinds Solutions
Here are the steps to integrate these three solutions:
- Configure Palo Alto to send log results to Dell servers
- Set up blocking rules and access rights for data traffic
- Install SolarWinds on Dell servers and configure it to collect logs from Palo Alto and other network devices
- Create dashboards and reports as needed
- Use SolarWinds’ correlation feature to connect data from multiple sources
- Automate SolarWinds to respond to emerging threats
Advantages of Integrating Dell, Palo Alto, and SolarWinds
By integrating Dell servers, Palo Alto’s robust firewall, and SolarWinds SIEM, you gain enhanced protection and streamline your risk mitigation planning process. Here are the benefits:
Enhanced Security
Real-time threat detection and centralized management of business security.
Enhanced Oversight Functions
Comprehensive IT monitoring with automatic notifications and optimized server performance.
Cost Efficiency
Reduced downtime and more targeted resource use, lowering Total Cost of Ownership (TCO).
Scalability
Flexible, scalable infrastructure and customizable security systems.
Operational Efficiency
Integrated dashboards to simplify mitigation processes and automate workflows.
Improved User Experience
Reliable performance with reduced latency.
Design Your Business Risk Mitigation with Virtus
It’s time to design and implement risk mitigation strategies to protect your business from losses. As an authorized distributor of Dell, Palo Alto, and SolarWinds, Virtus Technology Indonesia (VTI) will help you integrate these solutions for optimal results. We provide support from consultation and deployment to after-sales to avoid trial and error during setup.
Consult your needs with Virtus now. Start your consultation here.
Author: Anggita Olivia Herman – Content Writer CTI Group
