The Threat Intelligence Index helps you identify threats to your network. X-Force can help protect against them.

For some time, cybersecurity thought leaders have predicted that when it comes to attacks, the question is one of “when” and not “if.” They weren’t wrong. In fact, attacks have evolved beyond even that prediction and present a chronic problem for organizations, impacting not only IT but threatening business operations themselves.

Charles Henderson, Head of IBM Security X-Force offered a blunt (but accurate) perspective in an op-ed in 2021: “Assume that as a hacker, I’m already in, finding my way to your most prized possessions. What you actually need to trouble yourself with is, what can you do to stop me?”

The mindset shift

This is a mindset shift. It is strategic, not defeatist. Organizations must realize although there is no constant state of security, they can be prepared. While this will look different for every organization, it starts with knowing precisely what your most critical data is and where it resides. That knowledge needs to be coupled with an understanding of who has access to it, who could get access to it and who really needs that access. It’s about cutting off unnecessary pathways that an adversary could exploit.

 The mindset shift means security must be viewed as a journey, not a destination. 

But now the good news: IBM X-Force supports organizations at every stage of their security journey. By leveraging not only an attacker’s mindset, but the same tools, techniques and practices attackers use, X-Force uncovers high risk vulnerabilities and helps clients remediate them before attackers can find them:

Comprised of X-Force Red offensive security services, X-Force IR defensive security services and X-Force Threat Intelligence services, IBM X-Force provides a continuum of cybersecurity support that helps organizations stay head of global threats, reduce attacker impact and make Intelligence-driven decisions. Here’s how.

X-Force Red offensive security services for proactive support

X-Force Red is focused on identifying, prioritizing and remediating exploitable vulnerabilities that expose the most important assets to cyber attackers. It offers the following:

• Penetration testing to find and fix exploitable vulnerabilities impacting your organization’s most important networks, hardware and people.
• Vulnerability management to prioritize the highest-risk vulnerabilities for remediation.
• Adversary simulation to uncover and fix gaps in an organization’s incident response programs.

X-Force IR defensive security services for reactive support

Organizations need to detect, contain and recover from attacks. X-Force incident response (IR) defensive security provides preparedness and 24×7 emergency IR services to prepare teams to prevent or quickly respond to future attacks, whether on-prem, cloud-based or in hybrid-cloud environments. From full cyber-crisis management to assessments and simulations to put plans into practice, X-Force offers a range of defensive incident response services.  

For organizations interested in a “whole-of-business” framework to help all business functions act in unison during a crisis, X-Force’s cyber-crisis management helps prepare executive teams with a program assessment, full plan development and a set of executive playbooks for individual roles and scenario responses. Drills are customized to executives and offered as tabletop exercises and immersive simulation exercises.

At the program level, X-Force can assess various aspects of your cybersecurity program and landscape to deliver tailored insights that drive priority improvements. Assessments include an incident response program, a threat intelligence program, strategic threat, active threat and ransomware readiness. X-Force can also search the dark web to provide organization-specific key findings and recommendations.

When it comes to plans and playbooks, X-Force experts can analyze your existing materials—making strategic recommendations for improvement—or develop new plans and playbooks as needed. Organizations can test their incident response plan against multiple scenarios through tabletop exercises with cyber range capabilities. Security teams learn how to act against real cyberattacks in a simulated, state-of- the-art environment that tests skills, processes and leadership competence.

X-Force Threat Intelligence services

Make security decisions based on threat research from global security intelligence experts who provide industry-leading analysis. For organizations looking to enrich their threat analysis, X-Force can aggregate incident detection and response using threat group profiles, malware analysis reports, malware detection rules and threat activity insights extracted from near-real-time threat intelligence.

To optimize threat intelligence detection and sharing, X-Force can automate threat intelligence from internal and external data sources through an ecosystem of security tool integrations and open-source intelligence (OSINT) feeds to help your team detect and share threat data faster. By combining expertise with threat intelligence, X-Force simplifies threat intelligence management by designing, building and operating an automated cyber threat platform that delivers up-to-the-minute threat data to help organizations stay ahead of attacks.

Learn more and get started with IBM X-Force

• Read the latest annual X-Force Threat Intelligence Index Report
• View the Threat Intelligence Index Action Guide for insights, recommendations and next steps.
• Schedule an X-Force consultation
• Learn more about an Incident Response Retainer
• Learn more about X-Force Red offensive services
• Learn more about Threat Intelligence