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Enterprise security: How to stay secure at enterprise scale
Snyk's guide to enterprise security in 2023
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Today's ever-evolving digital landscape demands that enterprises enact robust security measures.
Enterprise security procedures ensure the protection and integrity of valuable digital assets, allowing organizations to navigate the digital landscape confidently while mitigating risks and thwarting potential threats.
By integrating cutting-edge technologies with proactive security strategies, organizations are one step ahead in ensuring the long-term resilience of the enterprise.
Keep reading to learn more about enterprise security today, such as:
Enterprise security vs. cybersecurity: What’s the difference?
6 Things to consider when choosing enterprise security solutions.
What is enterprise security?
Enterprise security is the comprehensive approach of technologies, practices, and processes organizations employ to protect their digital assets, systems, and data from threats and vulnerabilities. It involves implementing robust security measures to detect, prevent, and respond to various attacks, including unauthorized access, data breaches, malware, and insider threats.
Enterprise security also involves:
Ensuring compliance with industry regulations and standards.
Establishing secure development practices.
Conducting regular security assessments and audits.
Cultivating a culture of security awareness among developers and employees.
Proactive security measures — such as vulnerability management, secure coding practices, continuous monitoring, and threat intelligence — are vital in mitigating risks and safeguarding enterprise infrastructure, applications, and sensitive information.
Enterprise security: Use case
Digital health experiences and data-driven insights are vital in Rally Health’s business. So it is imperative that they prioritize application security and quality assurance for their software products.
The Challenge: Achieving enterprise-level AppSec visibility
Although Rally Health had several security tools in its arsenal, the lack of enterprise-level visibility and insights posed a challenge for its business leaders. To address this, the company sought a straightforward approach that would enable comprehensive application security while ensuring the willingness of their engineers to adopt the solution.
The Solution: Addressing security challenges through engineering collaboration
With Snyk, the application security team at Rally Health successfully and seamlessly integrated security measures into their engineering workflows. Snyk's capabilities allowed for native scanning of the Git repositories used by the engineering team, enabling the detection of vulnerabilities in both application source code and infrastructure as code (IaC). Through code analysis and validation during pull requests, engineers gained the ability to identify issues early in the build pipelines, empowering them to swiftly and effectively address remediation efforts independently.
For Rally Health, implementing Snyk:
Enables developers to resolve security issues early on.
Automates vulnerability scanning within code pull requests.
Implements DevSecOps without slowing down development.
Provides enterprise-level visibility into source code and infrastructure as code (IaC).
Gives company executives valuable insights into application security.
Read the complete use case and how Rally Health + Snky achieved scalable and transparent DevSecOps.
Empower developers to build secure applications
Snyk enables developers to build securely from the start, while giving security teams complete visibility and comprehensive controls.
Enterprise security vs. cybersecurity: What is the difference?
Cybersecurity is a crucial component of enterprise security.
Enterprise security is the measures, policies, and practices employed to protect an organization's assets, resources, and operations from internal and external threats.
Cybersecurity protects computer systems, networks, and digital data from unauthorized access, damage, or theft. It is a subset of enterprise security that deals specifically with the digital aspects of security, addressing the risks and threats associated with information technology systems and the cyberspace environment.
Effectively managing enterprise security requires a comprehensive approach that includes cybersecurity measures as a critical component. Enterprise organizations should also be aware of the difference between product security and application security, as they have similar but different requirements.
Enterprise Security | Cybersecurity | |
|---|---|---|
Function: | Protects an organization's assets, resources, and data from internal and external threats. | Protects computer systems, networks, and data from unauthorized access, damage, or theft. |
Focus: | Safeguards the organization and its operations as a whole. | Protects digital assets, networks, and systems from cyber threats and attacks. |
Scope: | Broad. Encompasses physical, digital, and personnel-related security measures. | Narrow. Primarily focuses on digital and network security measures. |
Key Aspects: | Risk management, access control, physical security, policy enforcement, incident response, and compliance. | Network security, information security, threat detection and prevention, encryption, and vulnerability management. Plays an important role in an organization’s enterprise-level security practices |
Examples: | Building security systems, employee access control, data backup and recovery plans, and disaster recovery strategies. | Firewalls, antivirus software, intrusion detection systems, secure coding practices, and penetration testing. |
5 challenges to enterprise security
Enterprises face various unique application and cloud security challenges that demand attention and proactive solutions.
Being a high-value target: Enterprises often become targets for cybercriminals due to their valuable data and resources. This heightened risk requires robust security measures to protect against sophisticated attacks.
Working with legacy infrastructure and technical debt: Many organizations struggle with outdated legacy systems and technical debt, making them vulnerable to security breaches. These systems often lack necessary security updates and pose challenges in patching vulnerabilities.
Securing personal information: Enterprises frequently handle sensitive information, such as customer data or employee records. Safeguarding this data against unauthorized access and potential breaches is a critical concern, especially in compliance with data protection regulations.
Shifting to agile development: Adopting agile methodologies brings rapid changes and frequent software updates. This fast-paced environment can make it challenging for traditional security practices to keep up, potentially leading to security gaps if not adequately managed.
Building a security program that scales: Addressing the complexity of diverse systems, networks, and applications while maintaining consistent and robust security controls across the organization is challenging for most enterprises and requires careful planning, coordination, and ongoing monitoring to adapt to evolving threats and ensure the protection of sensitive data and critical assets.
What kind of risks do enterprises face?
Enterprise environments grapple with unique security challenges and face risks that can jeopardize operations and sensitive information.
Some of the most common risks unique to enterprises are:
Ransomware: This malicious software encrypts data and demands a ransom for its release, often causing significant disruptions and financial losses.
Malware: Viruses, worms, trojans, and other forms of malware can infiltrate enterprise systems, compromising data integrity, stealing sensitive information, or disrupting operations.
Social engineering: Attackers employ psychological manipulation techniques to deceive individuals within the organization, tricking them into revealing sensitive information or granting unauthorized access.
Insider threats: Employees or insiders with privileged access can intentionally or inadvertently pose security risks by misusing their access privileges, leaking sensitive information, or carrying out malicious actions.
Phishing: Attackers send fraudulent emails or create deceptive websites that appear legitimate to trick employees into sharing sensitive information like login credentials or financial information.
The unique challenges and risks enterprises face highlight the importance of implementing comprehensive security measures and training programs to educate employees about potential threats and promote a security-conscious culture.
5 requirements for enterprise security
To meet the unique security challenges and risks that enterprises face, it is imperative to include the following in your enterprise security planning:
Application security (AppSec): Ensure that enterprise software applications are secure, free from vulnerabilities, and protected against unauthorized access or malicious activities.
Supply chain security: Safeguard the entire supply chain by implementing measures to mitigate risks associated with third-party vendors, partners, and suppliers. Monitor your software supply chain and maintain a software bill of materials (SBOM) to quickly identify risks and take action.
Network security: Secure the enterprise network infrastructure to prevent unauthorized access, intrusions, and data breaches. This involves implementing firewalls, intrusion detection systems, endpoint security practices (such as antivirus software, encryption, and regular patching), and network segmentation to protect against external and internal threats.
Server security: Protect the enterprise's servers, which store and process critical data and applications. This includes applying regular security patches, configuring strong access controls, and implementing robust encryption protocols.
Empower employees: Recognize that employees play a crucial role in maintaining enterprise security and should be empowered to make safe decisions and recognize and respond to threats as a unified team with security top of mind. Organizations achieve this by providing training and awareness programs to educate employees about security best practices, social engineering techniques, and the importance of adhering to security policies and procedures.
With these key requirements addressed, enterprises can enhance their security posture, minimize vulnerabilities, and reduce the risk of security incidents and breaches.
Enterprise security best practices
Enterprise-level security is a framework of processes and tools; to achieve enterprise-level security, you can implement four best practices right now:
Best practices | Description |
|---|---|
Educate and enable | As we prioritize shifting left and involving developers in security practices, providing devs with training that aligns with their languages and ecosystems is crucial. |
Implement the right tools | Implementing the right tools is crucial to comprehensive security coverage. For example: Access management and multi-factor authentication (MFA) solutions, Data loss prevention (DLP) solutions. |
Cultivate continuous awareness | Continuous awareness is crucial in maintaining a robust security posture. Ways to cultivate a culture of continuous awareness include Disaster recovery planning and risk assessment. |
Keep a full inventory | A full inventory means having a comprehensive and detailed understanding of all the assets and components within the organization's security landscape, including applications, systems, networks, hardware, software, and data. Keeping a full inventory helps with risk management and ensures business continuity. |
6 things to consider when choosing an enterprise security solution
Enterprise-grade security protects every phase of the software development lifecycle (SDLC). It is usually a combination of processes and tools (usually as a consolidated offer) to achieve a wide range of security measures.
Some critical features you should look for when choosing an enterprise security solution are:
Ecosystem and vulnerability coverage: Ensure that the security software aligns with your organization's specific needs and covers a wide range of potential vulnerabilities. It should integrate well within your existing technology ecosystem and offer comprehensive protection against threats.
Usability: Evaluate the software's user-friendliness and ease of deployment. A user-friendly interface and intuitive workflows are essential to ensure your security team can effectively utilize the software without significant training or disruptions.
Integration with existing stack: Consider how well the security software integrates with your existing technology stack. Compatibility with your current infrastructure, applications, and security systems is crucial for seamless implementation and efficient operations.
Ongoing support: Evaluate the level and quality of support the software vendor provides. Consider factors such as responsiveness, availability of technical assistance, and regular updates and patches to address emerging threats and vulnerabilities.
Vendor reputation: Research and assess the reputation and track record of the security software vendor. Look for customer reviews, industry recognition, and any security certifications or independent assessments that validate their expertise and reliability.
Return on investment (ROI): Consider the cost-effectiveness and potential return on investment the security software offers. Evaluate its overall value to your organization, including reducing security incidents, improving operational efficiency, and potential cost savings in the long run.
Carefully considering these key features and factors helps organizations make informed decisions and helps to ensure that the selected solution(s) align with their specific requirements, integrates seamlessly with existing systems, and provides robust protection against evolving threats while offering long-term value. Check out our guide to enterprise security tools for more information.
Developer Security Tools Buyer’s Guide
This guide discusses all aspects of developer security tools that buyers should consider when looking for a new developer-first security tool.
Next steps with Snyk
Snyk empowers devs to build securely by providing:
Vulnerability-free code: Snyk’s fast, accurate scanning, and automatic fix PRs help devs find and fix vulnerabilities as they code.
Enablement & education: With Snyk, you can turn developers into security experts with fix prioritization and actionable remediation advice from their tools.
Visibility & intelligence: Snyk lets security teams create guardrails while maintaining visibility and security.
A toolkit for building your own SBOM: Snyk provides developer-first CLI tooling to generate SPDC or CycloneDX SBOMs — locally or from your CI/CD pipelines.
See Snyk in action
If you’re ready to achieve enterprise-grade security, book a live demo to see all the features of Snyk’s AppSec and comprehensive security intelligence in action.
Enterprise security FAQ:
What are some examples of enterprise security?
Examples of enterprise security include implementing robust firewalls, intrusion detection systems, and access controls to protect networks and systems. Conducting regular security assessments and employee training programs to mitigate risks from social engineering and insider threats are some good examples of enterprise security.
Additionally, enterprise security involves using encryption mechanisms, vulnerability scanning tools, and advanced threat intelligence platforms to safeguard against malware, ransomware, and phishing attacks.
What is an enterprise security assessment?
An enterprise security assessment is a comprehensive evaluation of an organization's security infrastructure, policies, and processes to identify vulnerabilities, assess risks, and determine the effectiveness of existing security measures.
It involves analyzing network architecture, conducting penetration testing, and reviewing security controls to provide insights and recommendations for strengthening the overall security posture.
Next in the series
Enterprise vulnerability management: Processes & tools
Enterprise vulnerability management is the systematic process of identifying, assessing, prioritizing, and mitigating vulnerabilities in an organization's digital infrastructure, applications, and systems.
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