5 Ways proactive monitoring improves your cybersecurity

Conventional cybersecurity typically works like this: you try to download a file, such as an email attachment, only for your antivirus software to identify malicious code and quarantine it. While this method might prevent your computer from becoming infected, there’s a far more serious concern: how the malware made it past your network in the first place.

You also need to consider the fact that most cyberthreats don’t involve malware at all. Usually, they rely on social engineering scams or skilled hackers exploiting vulnerabilities in a network. While reactive cybersecurity measures still provide a crucial last line of defense, they work after the fact. They wait for someone to get attacked before implementing measures.

Proactive cybersecurity takes a different approach. It works by identifying the threats using a variety of heuristic measures from the outside looking in. The idea is to prevent malware and other threats from even making it into your network while also alleviating the need to manually update and maintain your internal security controls.

#1. Get a fresh perspective

Proactive monitoring is most often delivered as a managed service. The software is based in the cloud too, which means it’s managed and updated for you by the service provider. Since it doesn’t consume any internal resources, it also allows you to garner a fresh perspective on your information security infrastructure. The most sophisticated solutions are fully outsourced security operations centers (SOCs), which make enterprise-grade security affordable for small businesses.

#2. Stay ahead of attackers

You can hardly expect attackers to stick to a 9-to-5 routine, which is why you need to monitor threats around the clock every day of the year. If the service discovers something potentially suspicious, it will alert any relevant parties instantly, giving you a chance to remediate where necessary. As a cloud-based service operated by a team of experts, you can also stay ahead of the latest threats, such as zero-day exploits, which your internal cybersecurity controls are unlikely to pick out.

#3. Streamline compliance

Government-mandated regulations might be vague on exactly what you need to do to protect customer data, but they do demand a high cybersecurity maturity. Many businesses have a full-time compliance officer, while larger organizations have fully equipped teams to oversee matters of compliance and information security and privacy.

But smaller organizations usually can’t afford the high expenses of having a dedicated cybersecurity department. As such, they may end up cutting corners and relying on cumbersome manual processes that are subject to costly human error. Proactive monitoring by an outsourced managed services provider (MSP) can help small businesses overcome security-related compliance for a price that won’t break the bank.

#4. Reduce false positives

Most of us have experienced having an important email land in the spam folder and get overlooked, or trying to install a legitimate program only for the antivirus software to flag it as malicious. These are known as false positives, and they’re a common productivity drain in the workplace. While there’s no such thing as a perfect cybersecurity solution, false positives can be greatly reduced with a managed and up-to-date system that gives you more control over your network traffic. Proactive security is also more effective at identifying real threats by searching for suspicious activities rather than relying solely on looking for known signatures like malicious code.

#5. Boost business efficiency

Cybersecurity is everyone’s business, simply because everyone who uses a computer is a potential target. But while proper staff training is essential, that doesn’t mean cybersecurity should end up being a barrier to productivity and innovation. If your employees are spending more time worrying about security and privacy than focusing on their core skills, both productivity and morale will suffer. Proactive monitoring provides an extra layer of security to give you and your team peace of mind and get down to work without adding risk.

Fidelis provides managed IT support and business continuity services that keeps your technology protected and your workforce reassured. Call us today to discuss your business’s needs.