The shift to hybrid remote work has dramatically accelerated shadow IT adoption. With employees empowered to procure their own cloud services, organizations are losing visibility and control over data. In this guide, we’ll explore proactive strategies IT leaders can employ to get ahead of the shadow IT risk.

Discover Hidden SaaS Apps

Many organizations are oblivious to the scale of shadow IT across their environment. The first step is running SaaS discovery tools like Cloudlock, Netskope, and Microsoft Cloud App Security to unveil sanctioned apps, user accounts, and data volumes across each.

Discovery provides clarity on the current state and highlights high-risk apps driving non-compliant data exfiltration that must be addressed urgently. This insight informs the next steps.

Shift to IT-Sanctioned Alternatives

Rather than playing whack-a-mole trying to block every shadow app, provide IT-approved alternatives that enable the same user needs securely. For example, replace unchecked Dropbox usage with Microsoft OneDrive governed by data loss prevention policies.

Promote sanctioned apps through awareness campaigns, self-service access, and automated data migrations from high-risk shadow apps to guide users into the light.

Apply Unified Data Controls

For sanctioned apps, implement unified data loss prevention, encryption, visibility, and threat detection through cloud access security broker (CASB) platforms. Native CASB integration in Microsoft 365 provides protection for Microsoft and third-party apps.

Consistent data controls reduce risk while enabling collaboration across apps. With centralized policies, IT regains control without stifling business needs satisfied by shadow apps originally.

Simplify Procurement and Deployment

Empower employees to easily request and gain secure access to new apps through self-service IT catalogs. Automate fulfillment with user provisioning and single sign-on (SSO) to eliminate onboarding friction.

Fast deployment of sanctioned apps removes the incentive to seek shadow apps. Integrate request systems with change management workflows for necessary oversight by IT.

Continuously Monitor Usage

Apply automated usage analytics to detect shadow IT apps that may reemerge over time as employees try new solutions. For example, identify categories like messaging apps with disproportionate third-party usage compared to IT-approved tools.

Ongoing monitoring enables early detection so problematic apps can be replaced in a controlled manner before widespread adoption occurs.

With the right strategies, IT leaders can strike the balance between security and workforce productivity as hybrid work endures. Tackle this challenge head on by taking control with sanctioned apps. Contact DBGM to create your shadow IT management plan.

Even companies with extensive preventative security controls suffer breaches at times. Chaotic scrambling to respond after an incident finally triggers alerts results in costly delays and errors. By planning end-to-end response workflows in advance, organizations can react swiftly and effectively when crisis strikes.

In this comprehensive guide, we’ll outline strategies and examples for developing incident response plans that equip teams to contain and eradicate threats under pressure. Well-prepared response frameworks reduce business impact and help polish reputations by demonstrating control during incidents.

Define Roles Across IT, Security, Legal, Communications

Successful response requires tightly orchestrated actions across functions from technical investigation to legal obligations and external PR. Clearly define responsibilities of personnel during incidents as part of the planning process.

For example, designate lead incident commander, technical containment leads for networks/endpoints, forensic investigation/log analysis roles, infrastructure recovery duties, a communications lead to interface with executives, PR and regulators, and a legal coordinator to address compliance issues.

Preparing RACI matrices that map out responsibilities, approvers, contributors, and informed stakeholders for different response plan aspects ensures proper cross-functional coordination.

Construct Playbooks for Critical Scenarios

While every incident has unique attributes, many follow common patterns like ransomware attacks, insider data theft, or domain admin credential compromise. Develop tailored playbooks covering technical/ communications steps for addressing major incident scenarios based on risk assessments.

Response playbooks codify best practices specific to each threat type, reducing guesswork when under the gun. They specify containment steps like isolating compromised segments, suggested forensic tools and key artifact collection priorities, eradication steps like resetting credentials and removing malware, and communications templates to use for status updates and notifications.

Automate key aspects of response

Remove manual effort during incidents by having automated capabilities ready for activation. Ensure access to emergency credential rotation to quickly replace compromised admin accounts. Automate system isolation through preconfigured software-defined network policies. Collect forensic artifacts rapidly using automated threat hunting queries. The more that can be executed with a single click, the better.

Maintain Always-Ready Incident Infrastructure

Recurring maintenance ensures an always deployment-ready incident management infrastructure that avoids availability delays during crises. Check that approved forensic tools have current licenses. Validate access to the offline crypto wallet needed for ransomware demands. Cycle out expired SSL certificates on critical portals. Keep infrastructure primed.

Test via Realistic Simulations

Tabletop exercises only reveal so much compared to full-scale incident simulations. Schedule red team attacks, live ransomware detonations on test segments, and scenario runthroughs with external breach coaches. Use simulations to pressure test detection, validate containment steps work, refine runbooks, and identify capability gaps to address. There is no substitute for practice under simulated duress.

Capture Lessons Learned for Future Improvement

After simulations and actual incidents, conduct thorough debriefs focused on what enhancements would improve future response capabilities and outcomes. Analyze which actions were effective or troublesome in order to strengthen plans. Factor lessons learned back into the response framework continuously.

Secure Buy-in Across the Organization

Review response protocols with legal, communications, and business leaders periodically to secure buy-in and feedback across the organization. Shop floor managers to PR teams must align around planned protocols applied during incidents rather than questioning unfamiliar actions mid-crisis.

Following the strategies above enables assembling and maintaining the incident response plan your organization needs before an emergency strikes. Partnering with experienced response consultants ensures you develop not just documents but battle-tested processes. Contact DBGM today to review your current preparedness and start strengthening response capabilities before it’s too late.

For years, friction between security and development teams hindered organizations from keeping pace with business demands. Security groups lacking context threw last minute requirements over the fence or imposed delays with lengthy reviews and restrictions. Developers focused on speed felt hamstrung.

DevSecOps emerged as the practice of integrating security earlier into rapid development lifecycles. By embedding controls and testing into pipelines, issues can be prevented proactively rather than addressed reactively.

In this guide, we’ll demystify DevSecOps and provide actionable tips for security and development teams to adopt collaborative, high-velocity practices. United through shared objectives, both groups can propel business outcomes securely.

Make Security Champions Part of Development Teams

Rather than being an outside auditor, embed security engineer roles directly within feature teams. These security champions provide guidance during planning and design on how to integrate necessary controls upfront.

By being involved from the start, champions avoid surprises late in the process that cause rework. They also gain valuable insight into application context that informs appropriate protections.

Provide Developer Enablement Resources

Make training on secure coding best practices and threat modeling readily available to developers. Create internal certifications that guide developers through mastering techniques for their programming languages and frameworks.

Enable continuous learning through “lunch and learn” sessions on OWASP Top 10, credential hygiene, secrets management, and other secure development topics.

Automate Policy As Code Testing

Rather than manual reviews, use policy as code tools like Open Policy Agent to validate that infrastructure and application code adhere to security benchmarks. Tests execute against every build to shift left.

Build a library of policies aligned to organizational standards that immediately provide guardrails whenever new repos get created. Policy enforcement engrains secure habits.

Integrate Security Scanning into Pipelines

Embed static and dynamic analysis security testing tools at natural integration points in CI/CD pipelines. Fail builds that fail scans until issues remediated.

Over time, these verification gates influence developers to consider security proactively since they know checks are coming. Testing is validated code, not after-the-fact.

Instrument for Runtime Protection

To guard running applications, inject security capabilities like threat detection, identity management, and secrets protection using approaches like application security mesh (ESM).

Tools like Snyk and Orca Security simplify embedding runtime protections without changing underlying code. This shifts security left into production.

Unify Visibility Through Shared Data

Break down data siloes by aggregating security telemetry and application logs into shared data lakes. This enables correlated analysis spanning Dev and SecOps.

Unified data platforms like Datadog and Splunk provide holistic visibility that improves root cause diagnosis and collaboration on issues.

Foster Partnership Through Security Champions

Changing ingrained mindsets takes time and consistent positive experiences. Security champions embedded within teams act as the face of partnership, earning trust through enabling agile outcomes without compromising protection.

Gradually expand champions across all application teams. Consistent guidance and collaboration shifts cultures.

Measure Progress with Shared Metrics

Rather than only monitoring security KPIs like vulnerability counts, also track velocity metrics important to developers like release frequency, lead time, and deployment rates.

Shared scorecards align around delivering business value securely. Continuous improvement cements partnerships.

The DevSecOps journey requires bringing development, operations, and security together as partners through technology and process integration. Realigning teams around shared goals enables both security and speed. Work hand-in-hand with champions from DBGM Consulting who have walked the DevSecOps path before to guide your cultural transformation.