Public-private partnerships can better tackle today’s cyber threats environment

Few nations rival the safety of the UAE which recently placed second globally in Numbeo’s ‘Crime Index by Country’ report. Walk the country’s streets and it’s easy to forget how much is constantly being done to maintain these impressive credentials.

Step into the cyber domain and it’s no different – plenty of effort is being made to protect critical digital infrastructure from threats.

The stakes are high as it is a matter of public safety and national security. FedNet is just one proof point of the government’s commendable action to mitigate this threat. Now, the private sector must follow suit.

Many organizations have implemented powerful cybersecurity solutions. But today’s threats warrant more than just this. Recent tactics by nation-state actors do not rely on malware and are difficult to detect and track. Combatting such attacks therefore requires an approach that is focused on transparency, information sharing, and enhanced visibility.

Safeguarding systems

When an incident occurs, the ability to act swiftly is paramount -— not just for the impacted organizations, but also for the government agencies tasked with investigating and mitigating these attacks.

Enter the ‘Software Bill of Materials’ (SBOMs) which provide a fine-grained list of components and interdependencies, including open-source and third-party components. With this, they make it easier to quickly identify unusual or unauthorized components.

Equally important is pairing the SBOM with a ‘Vulnerability-Exploitability eXchange’ (VEX) document. This can provide a complete picture of risk in the specific context to the SBOM, reducing the time to investigate and accelerating the time to remediate vulnerabilities by providing a greater understanding of the components.

Public and private partnerships

Through these partnerships, the government can share intelligence on emerging risks and provide the public sector with the insights needed to bolster their defenses. In return, public entities can contribute by sharing real-time data on the threats they encounter, creating a continuous exchange of critical information.

Transparency within partnerships, which is enabled by strategies like SBOMs, creates an environment where both sides openly share information about threats and vulnerabilities. A high level of trust within these relationships also encourages private organizations to disclose critical data without worrying about misuse, which again allows public organizations to offer better support and resources in response to cyber threats.

Enhanced visibility

In addition to external efforts, visibility within organizations, is equally important in combating cyberattacks. IT environments are growing more complex by the day. Responding quickly to cyber incidents requires a deep understanding of these systems. Solutions like observability can provide a critical lift, as they help detect anomalies as they occur.

By providing real-time insights into the status of an entire IT environment, observability empowers IT teams to act swiftly and prevent an incident from occurring or escalating.

The effort to gain better visibility and insights into systems and processes are two important pillars of the SolarWinds’ ‘Secure by Design’ framework. Organizations can take a similar approach to help develop a clear road map toward achieving an enhanced cybersecurity posture.

Ongoing collaboration and innovation in cybersecurity can yield impressive results. No organization can single-handedly defend against sophisticated cybercriminals and nation-state threats. By leveraging the power of SBOMs and observability, we can build a more resilient and secure future, and by working together, we can create a safer and more secure environment that can face today’s cyber threats.