Why Whitelisting Programs Balances Security and Performance

How can you bring the right balance to your business operations and cybersecurity?

Cybersecurity for Your Business

Balancing Security and Performance

In life there is a point that we each need to find. It’s the point of equilibrium between security and performance. The point will be different for each of us and has to do with our tolerance for risk. In this context, the security in question is the cyber security, or the controls that we put in place to keep the bad guys out. Performance is our ability to get our work. On a continuum line, when Security is cranked super high, our performance will suffer, when Security is low, the we run the risk of business disruption in the form of network intrusion, loss of intellectual property and loss of data. The balancing point is where security is high enough to stop reasonable threats, and we can still get some work done.

Commonly-exploited Programs

On the security side of things, evidence shows that hackers historically like to tamper with (weaponize is the geeky term) regular computer applications. A common exploit is to get an unsuspecting user to click on a malicious link which is programmed to weaponize a common application. For example, you click on a Microsoft Word document attachment, the hacker has programmed a script to run when opened that activates PowerShell (a native application on every computer) to encrypt all of the files on your computer and fileserver. By putting a few simple controls in place, we can severely decrease the likelihood of attack in this way.

How to Deal With These Common Vulnerabilities?

We recommend whitelisting (creating a set of approved applications) and ring-fencing (setting parameters on what types of processes native applications can do). For us, the performance hit experienced by whitelisting and ring-fencing is comparatively small in comparison with the likelihood of attack from new applications being installed and weaponized.

Bring Balance To Your Business

Acknowledging that we each have a different intersection between Security and Performance, we’d love to hear from you. If you feel like your current solution is out of balance, give us a call to see how we can help restore that balance.

Philantech3 provides advanced cybersecurity tools and staff trainings to keep your operations safe; we provide Flat-rate managed IT support Services; for details on how we can assist you, call us at 509-590-4240.

Image by mohamed Hassan from Pixabay

Information Technology Aligned With Your Business Goals?
Philantech3 is a complete IT services & IT support company working with organizations in Spokane.