Automation reduces expenses and enhances productivity. It is vital in cybersecurity just like in manufacturing. A lot of labor-intensive security work may be automated to enable network defenders to accomplish more quicker, such as port scanning, monitoring, scanning vulnerability, and patching. There are different security tools that may be utilized to automate work to enable security teams to determine and deal with vulnerabilities faster and quickly identify attacks and look into suspicious activity.
Numerous security tools were developed for blue team usage that could save a lot of time. For instance, there are tools for scanning vulnerabilities, automating mitigation, and making suggestions about appropriate actions. Manually doing these things takes time and gives hackers the opportunity to exploit the vulnerabilities. There is a lot of threat intelligence that can be used with network defenders. Cyber intelligence tools mechanize the process of looking at threat intelligence and could separate unimportant data, enabling security teams to give attention to the most critical and important threats.
Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) tools are important to network defenders. They offer live evaluation of security warnings created by apps and network hardware and enable security teams to effectively gather and review log information obtained from all digital resources. Security Monitoring and Alerting Tools (SMAAT) and Network Intrusion Detection Systems (NIDS) constantly keep track of systems for suspicious activity and immediately advise security teams whenever a likely attack is identified. Automation could aid defenders to quickly determining publicly exposed resources, determining cloud misconfigurations, and checking excessive permissions and vulnerabilities prior to being exploited.
Automation is not just used by network defenders, it is used by hackers, too. That is why hackers could carry out a lot of attacks quickly. The CapitalOne data breach that happened in 2019 allowed access to 100 million credit card apps and accounts. The person responsible for the attack also breached the network of 30 more companies, which can only be done with automation.
Quite often, the tools employed by security teams for protection are used by attackers for offense. Automation made it possible to carry out substantial spamming and phishing campaigns, quickly determine vulnerable online systems, at the same time exploit vulnerabilities at several companies, and perform brute force attacks on accounts. For instance, hackers utilize the Autosploit tool to mechanize searches for vulnerable networks on the Shodan search engine and mechanize using the Metasploit platform for taking advantage of the vulnerabilities. If hackers are utilizing automation, security teams should also use automation to keep up.
The Health Sector Cybersecurity Coordination Center (HC3) lately released a new resource that demonstrates the advantages of automation and its effect on healthcare. The resource offers suggestions on a few automation tools for protective purposes. The tools have a high degree of automation, are simple to use, and got good support and technical documentation. They may be utilized by blue teams for protection and red teams for penetration screening to imitate adversaries and discover vulnerabilities prior to being exploited. The resource additionally details how hackers utilize automation for attacks, which could assist security teams to understand their enemies better.
