Digital Risk Protection (DRP) is the process of protecting your digital assets and brand reputation from external threats. As more business operations adopt digital, the threats and attack surface that can be exploited by threat actors increase. The foundation of DRP solutions is the idea that businesses may use threat actor activity to their advantage and stop assaults before they start.
In fact, the U.S. government’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA ) has stated that information sharing among organizations operating in the private sector is important to gain a more comprehensive understanding of cross-cutting and shared risks that could have cascading effects within and across organizations, sectors, and national critical functions (NCFs).
Because of this, it’s critical to have a DRP system in place that can correlate various data sources, searching the deep, dark, and clear web for possible dangers, and proactively identifying and investigating malware, phishing scams, and other threat actors.
Piecing together all these different sources of suspicious activity and launching a solution that also helps defend your network can seem daunting, but security organizations have no choice but to further their risk mitigation and threat intelligence strategies to stay one step ahead of attackers.
How digital risk protection works
DRP leverages insights gained from Cyber Threat Intelligence (CTI) monitoring to focus on actionable, specific protections. CTI monitoring creates a snapshot of the danger environment by combining data from several sources. This helps you recognize new threats to your company and allows for proactive mitigation of such threats before they happen.
DRP platforms identify, track, and analyze threats in real time by utilizing a variety of reconnaissance techniques together with clever algorithms. Indicators of Compromise (IOC) and Indicators of Attack (IOA) intelligence are used by DRP solutions to assess risk and notify security teams of potential or impending attacks.
The data processing and analysis capabilities of the DRP system ensure that security teams do not miss relevant threats from large amounts of intelligence data, allowing them to continuously discover, monitor, and mitigate risks targeting an organization’s digital assets in real time.
DRP systems also simplify workflows through advanced investigation and mapping capabilities that can create highly contextualized alerts, freeing analysts from the task of sifting through important alerts from the noise. After all, enterprises and security organizations are trying to advance their fundamental goals and broader initiatives, so there’s no reason for them to stop advancing their digital footprint.
Therefore, an effective DRP platform must evolve with your security organization and business, identifying new potential attack vectors and predicting the next areas of exposure along the network and its systems.
The Four Quadrants of Digital Risk Protection
DRP requires a multifaceted approach. An effective DRP solution will come from combining the following four quadrants:
mapping
Understanding your digital attack surface is essential to determining where and how threat actors attack, which also includes assessing your digital assets and helps build the foundation for how security organizations monitor for suspected threat activity.
Monitoring
DRP solutions transform millions of data points into actionable business intelligence through multi-dimensional threat analysis, contextualizing digital footprints and tracking threat evolution.
relief
By automating the threat mitigation process with a DRP solution, organizations can extend security support to other departments and corporate initiatives.
management
This refers to the management of the DRP solution, policy implementation, additional threat research, human intelligence, IOC enrichment, and vulnerability prioritization.
Digital Risk Protection Use Cases
An effective DRP deployment reduces the burden of security and allows your team to focus on critical business tasks. Let’s look at some examples of how a DRP built on comprehensive CTI can ease the burden on IT professionals.
Phishing Detection
Phishing is the most common attack vector used by threat actors, and by tracking indicators of phishing (registered domains, mail exchange (MX) record changes, DNS reputation) in a DRP, you can identify orchestrated phishing attempts and take down spoofed domains and sites.
VIP and executive protection
Spear phishing is rampant, targeting real users within an organization . DRP can identify impersonation schemes and protect digital assets belonging to VIPs, executives, and other personnel.
Vulnerability Prioritization
The amount of security data that CTI and DRP collect and analyze continues to grow. Using intelligent algorithms, DRP automatically sifts through the data and prioritizes alerts for security teams, allowing them to focus on indicators of the most pressing threats.
Dark Web Monitoring
Many of the most malicious cyberattack plans and activities occur on the dark web , and a DRP solution monitors all the places where criminal activity is discussed and planned, making this process essential to identifying and mitigating threats.
Brand Protection
Your brand is important to you. DRP monitors domain and IP address spoofing . By cracking down on these illegal activities, you can protect your company’s IT systems and reputation.
Protection against fraud
The DRP monitors auctions for illicit money and sensitive data. Monitoring this activity is critical because much of the data valuable to attackers is traded on the dark web for use in phishing and other attacks.
Identifying Malicious Apps
Threat actors are acutely aware that mobile apps are essential to modern business, so they are using fake apps disguised as real apps to steal data from consumers. DRP monitors for these malicious mobile apps.
Automated Threat Mitigation
Rapid response to identified threats is essential, and automating responses based on predefined criteria increases the security of both users and data.
Monitoring for leaked confidential information
Stolen logins and other access credentials are valuable assets to threat actors, and a DRP solution monitors the web for references to leaked credentials and alerts security professionals when they are found.
Sensitive Data Leakage Monitoring
Leaked data is also a valuable commodity for threat actors. A DRP can monitor data breach discussions and alert you if references to your organization’s data are found on the web or dark web. This is especially useful for large data breaches involving complex data sets.
Supply Chain Risk Protection
Many organisations will have extensive physical and digital supply chains, and by monitoring references to systems used by suppliers, a DRP reduces the chances of a breach occurring via a trusted but unwitting supply partner with access to the company.
Digital Risk Protection Services
Having a security service provider to help you operate your DRP gives you time to focus on bigger issues that impact your business, However, how can a Security Operations Center (SOC) locate a provider of Managed Digital Risk Protection (MDRP)?
- Analysis : Manual, time-consuming processes can hinder the productivity of security personnel. Time spent analyzing the dark web or web-based Git repositories for risk signals can easily be offloaded to MDRP, which has the expertise to address issues quickly.
- Partnership : With weeks of field experience, MDRP providers can share clear, actionable insights with their clients and work with them to develop a plan for moving forward.
- ROI : If you find the right partner for your specific needs, the ROI will show up naturally. Of course, you will still receive a regular retainer from your MDRP provider, but as you become more efficient, the service will pay for itself and then some.
- Understand risk : Security teams gain instant and unprecedented visibility into their risk profile and the benefits it brings to the business overall, helping providers mitigate threats such as data breaches and stolen executive credentials, as well as safeguarding their brand reputation in the face of threats.
- • Business Outcome: Lastly, MDRP providers can assist their clients in adopting a more proactive approach to risk mitigation by taking on risk analysis and protection weighing.
- It is not enough to simply react to this modern threat environment; organizations must act proactively in increasingly intelligent ways.