The threat posed by cyberattacks to the business world is astonishing. In 2022, there were more than 493 million ransomware attacks detected by organizations worldwide. This equates to more than 15 attacks per second, and ransomware is just one type of attack used by cybercriminals.
In the case that an organization fails to prevent attacks, significant repercussions will be incurred. The average cost of ransomware in 2022 was $4.54 million, not including the ransom itself, and experts predict that the total cost of ransomware attacks for 2023 will exceed $30 billion.
As institutions seek reliable ways to thwart attacks, many are turning to engineering principles to enhance their cybersecurity frameworks. This approach enables cybersecurity by design, rather than deploying it as an add-on to the core infrastructure, leading to a more systematic, proactive, and adaptable approach than that offered by other common security solutions.
Engineering-based security has a number of advantages
One of the key benefits of an engineering-based approach to cybersecurity is that it addresses vulnerabilities exploited by social engineering attacks. Statistics show that these types of attacks, which focus on user failure rather than system weaknesses, are the most common. Phishing—a type of social engineering attack—is the most common cyberattack overall, accounting for over 3.4 billion spam emails daily.
Engineering principles can protect against these attacks by pursuing user-centered design, as analyzing systems from a human perspective during the engineering phase allows for the introduction of features that reduce unintended vulnerabilities. Engineering can also proactively create user environments that increase usability and reduce the risk of security failures.
Social engineering vulnerabilities can also be reduced by leveraging engineering to minimize the need for user interaction. Systems can be designed to enable a zero-trust approach to cybersecurity, where processes are automated to eliminate the need for human involvement.
Applying engineering principles also enhances cybersecurity by enabling a system-oriented perspective. Taking a holistic, system-level view of cybersecurity provides insights that might be missed by strategies focused on isolated components and allows for identifying emerging interdependencies and synergies that might lead to vulnerabilities.
Treating cybersecurity as an engineering function leads to more resilient systems. Instead of merely enabling reactive controls designed to fend off attacks, engineering principles can enable cybersecurity controls that are resilient to attacks, even when they succeed. Resilient systems limit the negative impact of breaches and increase recovery speed by adapting their security response as breaches occur, ensuring the negative impact of attacks is minimized.
Overall, bringing an engineering perspective to cybersecurity instills more structure in the security framework, resulting in more robust and disciplined systems.
Methods to Apply Engineering Principles to Cybersecurity
One primary method to apply engineering principles to cybersecurity is to take steps to increase automation while reducing human involvement. As mentioned, human-caused vulnerabilities are a major reason for cybersecurity breaches, with statistics showing that nearly 75 percent of breaches are due to human negligence, such as failure to install patches.
Using Infrastructure as Code (IaC) in the development and deployment process is one approach that leverages engineering to enhance cybersecurity. Instead of assigning management responsibilities to human agents, infrastructure as code (IaC) depends on codes and scripts to administer the infrastructure environment. This reduces the danger of social engineering attacks by eliminating access authority from the targets of such assaults.
IaC also reduces cyberattack risks by using robot agents to increase system complexity. Privileged runtime accounts used in network-isolated environments run automated processes, thwarting the effectiveness of attacks like spear phishing and lateral movement techniques.
Secure fail-safe defaults are another security measure that can be engineered into systems to address human vulnerabilities. Essentially, fail-safe defaults mitigate the damage caused by security breaches by triggering failures that limit the attacker’s access, ensuring that a line of defense remains in place post-breach. Multi-factor authentication (MFA) is a simple fail-safe device that has become a common feature in cybersecurity. Safeguards requiring administrative privileges to install software are another form of fail-safe security used to prevent damage caused by malware.
Following an engineering approach to cybersecurity also allows institutions to build defense in depth. Security controls can be designed into systems at multiple layers, utilizing tools like encryption, firewalls, and intrusion detection systems. With this approach, failure at one level can be mitigated by controls designed into the next level.
Segmentation involves engineering strategies that divide systems and networks into different zones or compartments. By restricting access to segments of the system, institutions can reduce threats and contain damage when breaches occur.
Cybersecurity threats are higher than ever, forcing institutions to fend off an endless barrage of attacks or face serious financial and reputational damage. By leveraging the synergy between engineering and cybersecurity, institutions can develop and deploy resilient, responsive systems that address some of today’s most prevalent cyberattack strategies.