How baffling does $8 trillion worth of business loss sound? That’s how much cybercrime cost companies globally in 2023. Now imagine that multiplied by a factor of three. That’s the estimate for 2027.

With the average frequency of cyberattacks at 44 seconds throughout the day, security becomes more of a game of quick threat detection, proactive responsiveness, and predictive maintenance. Shutting the window of vulnerabilities promptly can make the difference between a mild compromise and a catastrophic data breach.

Yet, despite this urgency, cybersecurity strategies often lag behind. Surprisingly, 50% of organizations lack a comprehensive cybersecurity plan, while 33% of small businesses rely solely on free or basic solutions. These shortcomings leave businesses ill-equipped to navigate the increasingly complex digital threat landscape.

In the post-pandemic, uber-connected, and heavily digitized world, cybersecurity is akin to using instincts and probabilities as our primal, authentic selves – hunters. Businesses need to find and safeguard their way through the digital wilderness while improvising, upskilling, and revisiting their metrics of threat hunting.

The Golden Rule of Threat Hunting

They say that you don’t go hunting for a deer and shoot 50 rounds! As mission-critical as cybersecurity is, the rules remain the same. You cannot protect what you can’t see. Blind spots in your network infrastructure are vulnerabilities waiting to be exploited. Successful threat hunting hinges on three pillars: understanding your environment, preparing for diverse threats, and maintaining situational awareness. Effective threat hunting starts with achieving full visibility into your network.

• Study your landscape
  Comprehensive knowledge of your network’s data ingress and egress points is essential. Understanding where critical assets reside and how data flows through the system helps pinpoint vulnerabilities and focus defenses where they’re needed most.
• Practice situational awareness
  Establishing a baseline of “normal” activity is critical. By analyzing patterns in network traffic, user behavior, and system operations, organizations can quickly identify anomalies that signal potential threats.
• Prepare for every type of target
  Staying ahead of attackers requires real-time intelligence about emerging threats. Threat intelligence provides insights into the tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) used by attackers, allowing organizations to proactively mitigate risks.

Measure First, Manage Second

To manage every possible incident, companies have to quantify and track metrics around uptime, downtime, and how quickly and effectively teams are resolving issues. Understanding your ability to do so gives your organization a powerful way to determine holes in your defenses and areas where your team needs to improve.

But there’s a need to go beyond metrics by merging it with a timestamp and one or more dimensions to create a metric data point. You need a metric time series to ensure a successful hunt. While a single metric offers a snapshot of performance, analyzing metric time series adds depth and context. The data points, when analyzed as part of a metric time series, help uncover trends and patterns over time, enabling teams to manage incidents more effectively and ensure successful threat management. Merging metrics with timestamps and dimensions enables organizations to track their performance over time, enabling them to detect patterns, predict issues, and refine their strategies.

Key Metrics for Threat Detection and Response

• Mean Time to Detect (MTTD)
  MTTD measures the average time it takes to identify a security threat or incident. It provides faster detection that minimizes the window of opportunity for attackers, hence, reducing the potential for damage. For example, detecting a phishing attempt within minutes rather than hours can significantly limit exposure.
• Mean Time to Respond (MTTR)
  MTTR tracks the average time required to contain and remediate a threat after it’s detected. Lower MTTR indicates the security operations center (SOC)’s ability to act swiftly and effectively in neutralizing threats. The swift and rapid response to threats helps minimize and prevent further damage.
• Mean Time Before Failure (MTBF)
  It measures the average time between system failures, highlighting the reliability of systems and tools.
• Mean Time to Failure (MTTF)
  Tracks the average lifespan of a system before failure, helping organizations plan upgrades or replacements.
• Mean Time to Acknowledge (MTTA)
  Reflects how quickly a SOC team responds to an alert, a vital measure of team readiness and attentiveness

Consider this, analyzing a time series of Mean Time to Detect (MTTD) can reveal recurring delays in identifying specific threats, highlighting potential gaps in monitoring systems or areas where team training may be insufficient. Similarly, Mean Time to Respond (MTTR) time series data might uncover persistent delays in resolving certain types of incidents, signaling the need for improved automation, streamlined processes, or better resource allocation. By tracking these patterns over time, organizations can pinpoint weaknesses and implement targeted improvements to enhance their threat detection and response capabilities.

It’s important to note that there are no universally accepted methods for measuring MTTD and MTTR across industries. Each organization’s metrics are influenced by factors like network complexity, IT team size, and industry-specific challenges. This lack of standardization makes granular comparisons between organizations problematic. Instead, businesses should focus on improving their internal benchmarks over time.

To top that, metrics alone aren’t enough to drive improvement, team readiness is equally crucial, making education and training essential to empower SOC teams. Training and education can help teams develop the skills needed to act quickly and effectively during incidents. It helps them stay updated on evolving threats and best practices for response. With regular tabletop exercises, simulated attacks, and continuous education, SOC teams can prepare themselves to enhance the overall security of the organization by reducing MTTD and MTTR.

Know the Path that Others Carved to Navigate Your Way

Organizations that successfully reduce Mean Time to Detect (MTTD) and Mean Time to Respond (MTTR) implement interconnected strategies that align processes, tools, and teams for optimal efficiency. For instance, Toshiba leverages a SOAR (Security Orchestration, Automation, and Response) solution to streamline security, visualize incident patterns, expedite investigations, and leverage proactive incident response. Result? Faster detection and streamlined processes allowed the team to allocate resources to other critical tasks, improving overall operational efficiency.

At the same time, the Tonik Digital Bank, a leading digital-only financial institution in the Asia-Pacific region with over 1 million customers and rapid business growth, ensures the security of its cloud-native infrastructure against increasingly sophisticated cyber threats. With a cloud-based Managed Detection and Response (MDR) solution, the bank has been able to reduce its MTTD to less than 60 minutes and MTTR to under 24 hours!

Another fascinating implementation was seen in the BFSI industry when a company struggling with prolonged detection delays and inefficient response processes integrated real-time threat intelligence, continuous monitoring, and security awareness and training to allow faster identification and mitigation of cyber threats. By streamlining processes and leveraging automation, the organization achieved a stronger security posture and improved operational resilience.

Fortify your Defenses and Let the Hunt Begin!

Cyberattacks are more likely to bring down F-35 jets than missiles! By increasing visibility and solidifying processes, businesses can reduce the attack surface while continuously monitoring and strengthening the security posture. Implementing threat modeling, risk assessments, and zero-trust principles, and cultivating a culture of cybersecurity through continuous training are the key.

Advanced tools like AI-driven SIEM and automation accelerate detection and response, while regular vulnerability scans ensure adaptability against evolving threats. Success requires a holistic approach—optimizing incident response plans, leveraging advanced threat detection, and preparing teams through simulations. HTC’s expertise in aligning cutting-edge solutions with robust methodologies empowers organizations to safeguard assets, ensure resilience, and thrive in an ever-evolving threat landscape. Reach out to HTC Global Services to discuss how we can help you fortify your cybersecurity posture.