Automated Breach and Attack Simulation (BAS) is a valuable tool for organisations because it allows them to simulate and validate their security defences against a wide variety of threat scenarios without causing damage or disruption to the business.  Here are 5 reasons why Automated Breach and Attack Simulation should be a priority for organizations in 2023:

  1. Cybersecurity threats are constantly evolving: Cyber criminals are always finding new ways to breach defences and exploit vulnerabilities. Automated BAS tools help organisations to stay ahead of these threats by simulating the latest attack techniques and giving organizations the opportunity to fix any weaknesses before they are exploited without causing any harm.  Tools, like Validato, also allow security tools to validate their cyber defences against existing known threats and attacker behaviours by safely simulating MITRE ATT&CK techniques.
  2. Compliance requirements: Many industries have specific compliance requirements that mandate regular testing of cybersecurity defences. Automated BAS tools can help organisations meet these requirements in an efficient and cost-effective manner and will increasingly be used to augment the traditional offensive security testing options of penetration testing and Red Team testing services.  Tools, like Validato, map simulation test scenarios back to risk and compliance frameworks, like NIST CSF, NIST 800-53 and ISO 27001.
  3. Business continuity: Cyber attacks can have serious consequences for an organisation, including data breaches, downtime, and loss of customer trust. Automated BAS tools can help organisations to test and validate security postures on a regular basis to give security teams the impartial data that they need in order to harden their security posture and avoid disruptive cyber events from damaging the business.
  4. Improved cybersecurity posture: By regularly testing and improving their defences through automated BAS, organisations can build a strong and resilient cybersecurity posture that is better equipped to withstand cyber attacks.
  5. Improve threat detection capabilities:  BAS tools can be used to improve threat detection capabilities by helping to tune and optimise SIEM and event logging systems to better detect threat based behaviours.  Recent research from Cardinal Ops suggests that the leading 5 SIEM platforms often miss up to 80% of MITRE ATT&CK TTPs.  This means that security teams are potentially flying blind or have a false sense of security.

Validate your security posture

Automated Breach and Attack Simulation tools, like Validato, can help security teams to better test and validate their security posture by providing clear, concise and most importantly, unbiased data on how security controls are protecting the business from threats and threat actor behaviours and how well the security team is able to detect this activity.

Automated Breach and Attack Simulation tools will increasingly show that traditional offensive security testing methods, like using penetration testing and Red Team testing alone, are expensive, point-in-time exercises and often limited in testing scope.  We see Automated Breach and Attack Simulation augmenting traditional offensive security testing methods in the short term.

Will you make BAS a priority in 2023?

In summary, automated Breach and Attack Simulation should be a priority for organisations in 2023 because it helps them identify and address vulnerabilities, meet compliance requirements, maintain business continuity, and improve their overall cybersecurity posture.

If you are thinking about exploring Breach and Attack Simulation solutions in 2023, we would encourage you to have a chat with the Validato team and take advantage of our free trial so that you can safely test and try before you buy.