Five Ways to Make Your Security Team More Efficient

Most organizations recognize the importance of a cybersecurity team but that doesn’t mean they necessarily know the best way of optimizing their output. Three-quarters of businesses report that security has become a bigger business priority in the last 12 months, with their expenditure in this area increasing as a result.

But having a higher security budget, whether this means recruiting more cybersecurity personnel or investing in new technologies, will only get you so far. The huge cybersecurity skills gap, alongside a seemingly endless growth in the number of threats businesses are facing, means that finding additional cybersecurity resources isn’t easy. 

However, all hope is not lost. There is a way for organizations to bolster their defenses without requiring more cybersecurity investment or personnel. The trick is to do more with less. Making your cybersecurity team more efficient isn’t about cutting corners either. We’ve outlined five ways you can optimize your security strategy to keep the hackers at bay.

Collaborate effectively

It’s all well and good having a first-class cybersecurity team but do they know what your developers are working on or what third-party vendors your marketing department is in contact with? A cybersecurity team is supposed to protect the entire organization against threats but that is extremely difficult if it doesn’t work with employees from other departments.

Collaborating more effectively can help break down siloes, granting security personnel visibility into systems they may not have direct control over. This doesn’t necessarily mean having to ask for access to different applications all the time either. Automation can be leveraged to provide access so they can practice proactive protection without disrupting workflows. 

Remember to foster collaboration from top to bottom of an organization too. Work with the boardroom to ensure a safety-first culture runs throughout the company. The human aspect of cybersecurity cannot be underestimated and ensuring that your cybersecurity team can collaborate freely with other departments is key to ensuring they can carry out their duties as efficiently as possible.

The importance of training

The threat landscape is shifting all the time, which means cybersecurity teams can never rest on their laurels, content that they know how to counter all the attack vectors around. As a case in point, 26,447 vulnerabilities were disclosed in 2023, an increase from the total number of vulnerabilities found the year previous. The threats facing an organization could result from ransomware exploits, man-in-middle attacks, software misconfigurations, or as-yet-undiscovered offensives.

The constantly evolving nature of the security environment means that teams need to constantly have their knowledge refreshed regarding the latest risks. This is where the importance of training can’t be underestimated. Training can inform security personnel about the latest threats, as well as remind them of the fundamental security steps they should always adhere to. It can also be a great way of getting them up to speed with the latest security technologies, whether you’ve just started using a new vulnerability management tool for the first time or have recently updated a core piece of software and are worried about supply chain attacks.

There’s no need to restrict security training to your cybersecurity team alone either. Offer training company-wide to ensure that all staff are aware of the steps they can take to protect your digital perimeter. Research shows that training can result in a 78% reduction in the likelihood of an employee succumbing to a phishing email, for example. Ensuring that everyone has received the latest training can cut down on the number of avoidable security incidents that your team has to deal with.

Be proactive

Threats are unavoidable. It doesn’t matter how much due diligence you carry out before working with an external vendor or how much time you invest in ensuring that staff are supplied with the latest security awareness tips. Risks are simply a fact of the digital world we live in. That’s why security teams can’t sit around waiting for the next attack to occur. They need to root it out at the earliest opportunity. They need to strike before the hackers do. 

Discovering unknown risks, anticipating threats, and plugging gaps before they’re exploited is a much more efficient defense than patching up holes after a hacker has already breached your digital perimeter and made off with sensitive information. And it means you avoid any financial or reputational damage that may occur as a result. 

Of course, it’s all well and good telling your cybersecurity team to be proactive, but it’s not practical to expect them to manually scan your entire attack surface constantly - and it might not lead to the right safeguards anyway. Instead, offensive AI could prove essential to creating a more proactive cybersecurity posture. AI can underpin your risk management strategy and understand the context around your security data so human intervention is required only when absolutely necessary. 

Invest in the right tools

Everyone needs a helping hand from time to time and no cybersecurity team can work effectively unless it has access to the right tools. Access to up-to-date, reliable security solutions will free up your security employees to focus on value-add tasks like reviewing alerts, system integration and updating security documentation.

The need for cybersecurity technologies has only grown as the threat landscape has become more diffuse too. Businesses can no longer rely on one-size-fits-all software packages but are instead likely to need a suite of bespoke tools. This needn’t represent a drain on employee time or financial resources, however. Automation is a fundamental feature of many of these solutions, meaning that more tools won’t mean more work for your cybersecurity teams.

Today, 66% of security analysts believe they could automate as much as half of all of their work. Digital solutions can facilitate this, removing the manual burden on security personnel while strengthening defenses. 

Embrace automation

Incorporating automation within your security strategy doesn’t just mean investing in the right tools. It’s also about getting your security personnel to buy into a broader culture of automation. Every time they find themselves taking on a repetitive, manual task, do they ask themselves, “How can this be automated?”

Finding new ways to deploy automated solutions should be the holy grail for any security team. The sheer size of the threat landscape means that any team that ends up bogged down by manual processes will be rife with inefficiencies. Automation, whether you’re building no-code security tools internally or working with an external vendor, should be an important factor whenever you’re looking to boost efficiency. But a culture of automation isn’t the sort of thing you can just leave to itself. You still need to continually assess and improve the solutions you deploy to ensure they are supporting your security teams to operate at optimal efficiency. 

Aligning efficiency and security

Businesses understand that the sheer number of cybersecurity attacks they face every day means that teams have their work cut out to deliver robust defenses. They also understand that throwing more people at the issue won’t work. Automation is the answer.

At Hadrian, we offer automated, AI-driven security tooling that helps security teams get the job done faster and more effectively. Our solutions mean you discover more about your attack surface, prioritize risks better, and can remediate issues quicker. By adopting the hacker’s perspective, we enable security teams to work in a way that focuses on results. It reduces the burden of missed threats and false positives, so your team can be as efficient as possible.