No matter what the sport, your chances of winning are pretty low if you only play defense. That’s also true in cybersecurity. You need a solid and layered set of defenses to protect your business, but your chances of avoiding a cyber breach are better if you take the fight to the attackers, too.
In this article, we’ll explore what cyber threat hunting is, why it’s important for small businesses, and how you can implement it along with your other cybersecurity measures to protect your company’s critical assets.
What is Cyber Threat Hunting?
Cyber threat hunting is a proactive approach to cybersecurity that involves actively searching for hidden threats within an organization’s networks and systems. Unlike traditional cybersecurity measures that rely on automated tools and known threat signatures, threat hunting employs human expertise and advanced analytics to uncover stealthy, unknown, or emerging threats.
The primary objective of cyber threat hunting is to identify and neutralize potential threats before they can inflict significant harm. By proactively seeking out threats, small businesses can reduce their risk of falling victim to cyberattacks, data breaches, and other security incidents. Threat hunters utilize a combination of tools, techniques, and intelligence to detect and investigate suspicious activity that may indicate the presence of a threat actor or ongoing attack.
Cyber threat hunting is particularly important for small businesses, as they often lack the resources and expertise to implement comprehensive cybersecurity programs. By adopting a proactive approach to threat detection, small businesses can enhance their overall cybersecurity posture and better protect their critical assets, such as customer data, intellectual property, and financial information.
Benefits of Cyber Threat Hunting for Small Businesses
- Early detection and prevention of cyber threats
- Reduced impact of successful attacks
- Improved overall cybersecurity posture
- Enhanced compliance with industry regulations and standards
The Risks of Ignoring Cyber Threat Hunting
Small businesses that don’t use cyber threat hunting face many risks. Financial losses are among the most significant consequences of cyberattacks. The average cost of a data breach in 2023 was $4.45 million. This includes direct costs, such as ransom payments and legal fees, as well as indirect costs, like lost productivity and customer attrition. As a small business executive, consider the impact on your company of an unexpected cost like that. This is the danger of minimizing the risk of cyber attack.
In addition to financial losses, small businesses may suffer reputational damage and loss of customer trust following a cyberattack. This can lead to a decline in sales, customer churn, and difficulty attracting new customers. Since online reviews and social media can quickly spread news of a security problem, the damage to a small business’s reputation can be huge.
Furthermore, small businesses may face legal and regulatory repercussions for failing to protect sensitive customer data. Depending on the industry and the nature of the data involved, small businesses may be subject to fines, penalties, and even lawsuits. Every state in America has a law requiring companies to notify customers about a cyber breach. This applies even if your customers aren’t residents of the state you do business in. The amount of effort required to comply with notification laws can be just as devastating to a business as the financial loss.
Challenges Small Businesses Face in Implementing Threat Hunting
Even though cyber threat hunting has clear benefits, many small businesses have a hard time using it. One of the biggest challenges is having limited money and resources. Small businesses often have less money to spend on advanced cybersecurity tools and people compared to bigger companies. Threat hunting needs special skills and technologies, like security information and event management (SIEM) systems, endpoint detection and response (EDR) solutions, and threat intelligence platforms. The cost of buying and maintaining these tools can be too high for many small businesses.
Another challenge is not having cybersecurity experts on staff. Small businesses may not have their own IT or cybersecurity teams, which makes it hard to create and run effective threat hunting plans. Threat hunting requires a deep understanding of how networks are set up, how security controls work, and what methods attackers use. Without this knowledge, small businesses may struggle to find and look into suspicious activity.
Small businesses also have to balance cybersecurity with other business goals, like growth and profitability. Setting up a strong threat hunting program takes a lot of time and resources, which can be hard for small businesses when it’s not their primary focus. Small business owners and leaders may not want to spend limited resources on cybersecurity if they think the risk of an attack is low.
Practical Steps for Implementing Cyber Threat Hunting
To overcome these challenges and set up effective cyber threat hunting, small businesses can take several practical steps:
- Train employees on cybersecurity best practices, such as recognizing phishing emails and reporting suspicious activity. Human error is one of the main causes of cybersecurity incidents, and small businesses are especially vulnerable to social engineering attacks. By educating employees on how to spot and respond to potential threats, small businesses can create a stronger first line of defense against cyberattacks. Need help? Our article on selecting a cybersecurity training provider is for you!
- Do a cybersecurity risk assessment to find important assets and potential weaknesses. This assessment should look at things like how sensitive the data is, how bad a security incident could be, and how likely an attack is. By understanding their risk, small businesses can focus their threat hunting efforts and use resources better.
- Use endpoint detection and response (EDR) solutions to watch and analyze network activity for signs of threats. EDR tools provide real-time visibility into what endpoints are doing, allowing small businesses to quickly detect and investigate suspicious activity. Many EDR solutions also include threat intelligence feeds and automated response capabilities, which can help small businesses with limited cybersecurity expertise.
- Better than an EDR, partnering with a managed EDR provider (MDR or XDR) to get access to specialized threat hunting expertise and resources. MDRs offer a range of cybersecurity services, including threat hunting, incident response, and security monitoring. By outsourcing these functions to an MDR company, small businesses can benefit from the provider’s knowledge and technology without having to invest in their own capabilities.
Wrapping Up
After reading this article we hope you’re inspired to not sit idle waiting for a cyber breach. As powerful as the benefits of threat hunting are for your business, the fact remains that it is a model that requires specialized and often expensive skills. That’s where partnering with a managed EDR provider can provide you with the expertise and resources you need to start proactively searching your networks for signs of attack, without the cost and overhead of standing up an entire cybersecurity team.
If your business could use the peace of mind that comes from working with a best-in-class cybersecurity partner with extensive experience threat hunting and a 24/7 operations center on-call to safeguard your business, sign up for a FREE 30-day trial of CYDEF from Arch Access. It protects against zero-day attacks, ransomware, and more, and it provides threat hunting, comprehensive incident details and response at no extra cost. Sign up today or contact us to learn more.