The increase in cyber threats, in terms of both scope and quality, has forced companies and organizations to arm themselves with a variety of solutions. CISOteria presents a new approach that’s poised to change the field from the ground up: “Instead of continuing to thwart breaches, we’re rebuilding the protective walls, restoring order from within the chaos, and ending the war before it even begins.”
Imagine Beethoven’s fifth symphony played in C minor by the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra—but with the world’s best conductor missing both his baton and the full score. The scene would be one of complete and utter cacophony, wouldn’t it?
This is how enterprises are forced to manage their security and compliance. No knowledge of risk exposures. No peers benchmarked. No real-time data on security implementation status. Yet, with no means to truly manage security and compliance, minimal resources and limited budgets, enterprises still must ensure zero business interruptions from cyber incidents and 100% compliance with cybersecurity and privacy regulations.
While the scope of cyber threats has surged worldwide in recent years, the Covid-19 pandemic has, in parallel, exemplified this very rise in risk levels. With a 62% increase in the number of ransomware attacks between 2019 and 2021, there is no doubt that organizations and companies are now being forced to cope with a new and more complex reality.
According to a series of surveys, 95% of CISOs (chief information security officers) admit to regularly working overtime. Nearly half (48%) of CISOs even report experiencing stress to the point that it adversely affects their mental health. Conversely, 97% of executives say that they are dissatisfied with their security team’s performance.
“The problem lies in the attribution of the tasks information security teams face,” says Ido Ganor, CEO of IPV Security, a cybersecurity consulting firm. “For the most part, CISOs search for a key vulnerability within their existing systems—the breach that would endanger the organization. But what difference does it really make if they handle a single breach when a new one will, most certainly, be found tomorrow? Enterprises cannot protect themselves without putting an end to this vicious cycle.”
Ganor believes that the goal must be to repair faulty processes within an organization. “This is a weakness exhibited by most organizations. Their access permissions don’t update in time, and software updates are not being continuously installed,” he says. “As long as we continue to search for vulnerabilities and breaches, we will naturally remain at a disadvantage. Only once we start to repair the processes within our organizations will we be able to truly protect ourselves.”
From managing breaches and products to managing risks and processes
This is where CISOteria—a sister company of IPV Security, also headed by Ganor—and its newly developed platform enter the picture. “Over the years, we searched for an ERP tool for the field of information security,” Ganor notes, “a system that would enable an organization to not only be presented with a broad and reliable image of their updated status, but also offer them smart solutions to help make their information security processes more efficient. Specifically, we sought to abandon a lost cause—the race against breaches that have already occurred. Instead, we chose to adopt an innovative, process efficiency-driving approach to preventing the next breach before it is even conceived. We were unable to find such a system on the market, so we decided to develop one ourselves.”
This decision led to the birth of CISOteria’s platform, a system that manages organizations’ information security from end to end. This powerful tool has been made available to IT managers, CISOs, VP Finances, and CEOs alike.
The system monitors the organization’s cybersecurity defense layers—information security products installed on its computers, along with ongoing processes such as firewall implementation, security patch updating, employee training, and the like—on a continual basis.
CISOteria automates a variety of protective activities and integrates all of an enterprise’s information security efforts. However, the true importance of this innovative system rests in its ability to map the scope of the risk and the level of protection within an organization—to paint a complete picture of their information security status and provide actionable, expert recommendations for improving processes consistently and without pause.
“CISOteria is a revolutionary product that has changed the way organizations look at information security,” Ganor says. “These days, many organizations don’t have the basic ability to know where they stand vis-à-vis their strengths and weaknesses. CISOteria provides them with the broader yet more precise picture they need. Knowledge is power, and we ensure that the relevant knowledge is always within reach for every level of an organization—IT managers and CEOs alike.”
Measuring an organization’s proactivity and risk
CISOteria performs several functions around the clock: it measures the risk to an organization’s systems; compares the organization’s information security activities to those of other organizations with similar risk levels; provides expert, data-driven recommendations and monitors their implementation; and ranks the organization’s level of proactivity against threats.
“Our system continuously tabulates organizations’ risk levels; these calculations are made regularly and without pause,” Ganor explains. “This enables me to see what happened yesterday and the day before. It also analyzes which processes are most efficient and which aren’t suitable at all, so I can make smarter decisions. The trend,” he adds, “is what’s most important to executives and CISOs—is the risk level rising or falling? Our system is the only one that imposes order within the chaotic world that is in enterprise information security. It disperses the fog, so organizations can clearly see (and mitigate) risk.”
“CISOteria is the solution I had been seeking for a long time,” says Mike Ray, chief information officer at Reichman University (formerly IDC Herzliya). “It provides me with up-to-date snapshots of the university’s cyber risks, 24/7, and allows me to make informed decisions and prioritize courses of action. We couldn’t be happier with our choice of the CISOteria platform.”
“At the end of the day,” Ganor notes, “enterprises operating in the Information Age cannot protect themselves without the right information. Even the most powerful firewall is ineffective if the professionals and executives can’t study the organization’s status and obtain a reliable picture. CISOteria provides CISOs and IT managers with the knowledge and tools they need to make smarter choices, and it gives CEOs broad snapshots to allow for more optimized resource allocation. We provide organizations with the ’battle intelligence’ they need. In light of the surge in cyber threats, our tool provides game-changing protection.”
