What is Security by Design or SbD? 

It is well known that one of the future policies of companies, at a technological level, should be the application of protection solutions such as the Security by Design service, which is becoming more and more relevant.

Most technology specialists point out the imperative need to update the cybersecurity issue in their companies.

Increased investment is already a fundamental part of ensuring business continuity without significant losses in the long term. Therefore more than 51% of respondents are willing to increase investment and qualified personnel.

Security by Design will establish a level of protection at the edge of connections, where cybercriminals generally try to infiltrate companies.

These attacks focus on breaching users’ passwords, usurping their identity, or targeted attacks on service providers.

For this reason, Security by Design Services will mitigate or nullify any attempt to breach the technological infrastructure or the data stored or exchanged therein.

What is Security by Design?

Security by Design is defined as an approach oriented to developing software and hardware policies within the company’s technological infrastructure. Some examples can be found in Erbis case studies.

These policies seek to ensure that data and systems are as accessible as possible from vulnerabilities and potential attacks through the application of continuous security tests.

It guarantees the authenticity of connections and information on the network and brings the company into line with the best cybersecurity practices.

This new trend allows pre-established protocols and procedures to address potential security gaps and address vulnerabilities in the technological infrastructure.

These regular procedures help to locate security holes and repair those flaws avoiding late occurrences of actions. It is why the Security by Design approach becomes vital in the enterprise.

This Security by Design service is becoming more relevant every day, especially in other services such as IIoT and IoT. Almost any imaginable device, object, or entity can possess a unique identifier (UID) and be networked to be addressable over the Internet.

It is where Security by Design steps into inventory every device connected to the infrastructure since, traditionally, companies have not paid much attention to this issue.

Although Security by Design should be considered at the beginning of an infrastructure project, it is used to correct cybersecurity flaws in already consolidated organizations before installing it.

Of course, it is a service specifically applied via Cloud Services as a contractable value to the cybersecurity standards offered by your technology provider.

Security by Design Features

SbD’s approach makes it easy for organizations to design and automate their Cloud environments, applying security and governance policies reliably and securely.

Another vital aspect to emphasize is the statistical control by monitoring or reporting that can expand cybersecurity capabilities in real-time.

These aspects generate automation of processes, reducing the responsibility of cybersecurity in a few hands and under stricter controls.

The automation of procedures and audits are executed autonomously in many cases, under the protocols established in the acquired Cloud services.

Stages of Security by Design

To correctly determine the stages of Security by Design or SbD, one must understand its approach, which is focused on obtaining a complete perspective of the company’s cybersecurity lifecycle.

This cycle allows determining the beginning of a stage, its development, and final phase, determining origin and destination in a more precise way.

It is why Amazon proposes four phases in the SbD approach for its AWS environment, integrating security with the compliance of the accounts created, as follows:

Phase 1 – Understand your requirements. 

You need to establish and develop the security policies you want to apply in your environment based on the cloud services you provide.

In this way, you can decide which security rules you will apply and which functions you want to control in the IT environment.

It is a step before implementing them, thus saving time in trial and error in organizations that want to start from scratch or in established companies.

Phase 2 – Create a secure environment related to the established requirements.

In this phase, you should define the values to be set in the security configuration of the Cloud environment, such as data encryption, access permissions, and the types of logs to be activated and used.

The Cloud environment will help provide the options through the services associated with the SbD, where you can use the security templates to generate the rules of the domain.

It is why you should engage with the specialized IT staff to carry out these roles and responsibilities and create a robust and secure governance environment for the enterprise.

Phase 3 – Use of templates.

In the case of most Cloud service providers, a catalog of templates can be found. These templates create an environment where you prevent anyone who does not comply with the pre-set rules in the record from logging in or accessing information or systems.

This catalog is directly linked to the configuration of audit controls. Therefore each template activates tracking and logging procedures in the traceability of information from source to destination.

Phase 4 – Perform validation activities.

Once the stage of template creation is completed through the catalog available in the Cloud Service, SbD will be ready to process the necessary audits.

Each template joins the audit as a usage guide that allows knowing the status of any environment linked to it and compare it with previous data or other settings.

This audit can be automated using some scripts through secure read permissions so that you can collect evidence of any issues or anomalies.

You can also convert some manual processes through the automation of these controls and make them work at 100% at all times.

Although this process can be automated, it is necessary to have specialists in the area for such a Security by Design approach to accomplish what is proposed.

Importance of Security by Design

This SbD approach allows creating a security design through software and hardware development since, as a system is developed in isolation, it becomes more challenging to implement this approach.

Having a Security by Design approach allows you to incorporate security patches and vulnerabilities when implementing from the start rather than real-time action without this approach.

IoT advances lead to having the SbD approach coupled with these innovations because of the rapid evolution of technologies in any environment.

That is why with the application of the SbD approach, any company can obtain substantial benefits in its cybersecurity environment such as:

Conclusion

While cyber-attacks will not stop, it is better to establish protocols on a path already started than to respond urgently from scratch.

That is why Security by Design requires more significant investment in the design and development processes to meet not only the well-being of users but also the vulnerability of enterprise applications, devices, and systems.

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