Safeguarding
Your Future

A process that evaluates current security systems and infrastructure against the Australian Cyber Security Centre’s (ACSC) Essential Eight cyber risk mitigation strategies. These ratings provide a general groundwork for the current state of the organisations security and provide recommendations for a broad implementation of security best practices. This assessment can identify the maturity of these 8 strategies, and what actions can be taken to further develop each strategy in the organisation.

Risk assessments are structured and comprehensive processes to identify, analyse and evaluate security risks and determine practical steps to minimise the risks. CTRL’s risk process is data orientated, focusing on the most sensitive aspects of the organisation and in particular on the access & technical controls that protect that data. Using this information we rate the current exposure levels against the organisations acceptable risk & impact charts. From there mitigation plans can be developed to limit the risk to tolerable levels.

If a breach has occurred, forensic post incident investigation is key to knowing how it occurred, what assets have been compromised and how to close the attack pathway. Attackers usually create secondary paths into the network in the circumstance the business discovers and blocks the primary compromised pathway. Forensics trace the steps an attacker performs to see if further pathways were created during their attack.

The public facing web applications and servers are tested for information and vulnerabilities are identified. This information can then be used for extracting sensitive information, denial of service attacks or gaining access to backend networks and databases. By identifying these weak points, defences can be put in place to strengthen the web application posture.

Identify weaknesses in a network, simulating an attack from a disgruntled malicious employee individual or an attacker that has breached external defences. Understanding what information can be extracted in such an attack allows the organisation to implement changes to strengthen the network from within.

The network is attacked from the outside, simulating a remote hacking attempt. This can identify which systems can be seen by would be attackers to allow an organisation to deploy countermeasures enhancing their network perimeter.

Through human interaction and deception tactics, an attacker can gain access to internal resources or on site assets under the pretence of legitimate activity. This can then be used to formulate staff procedures to mitigate the inherent weaknesses that stem from human trust. Social Engineering attacks include Phishing Attacks, Phone Attacks and Onsite Attacks which also test the physical security controls.

As complex technology environments are upgraded and changed, certain elements may not function as originally intended and have subsequently become weak points over time. An attacker can use these legacy systems as a means to gain access to the broader network resources. By conducting operational tech testing, these weak points can be identified and addressed to strengthen overall system defence.

API testing is a type of software testing that involves testing application programming interfaces (APIs) directly without using a standard user interface. This is to determine if they meet expectations for functionality, reliability, performance, and security. Often API’s will disclose more information than they intend. This opens up vulnerabilities and potential attack vectors. By finding these issues, they can be mitigated in advance to enhance the overall security of the web application. The testing concentrates on the business logic layer of the software architecture. Logic errors, information disclosure, session management and user access controls are core areas tested. If these are improperly configured, they can be some of the greatest threats to your applications security. API testing as an assessment of how securely information is communicated from the application request and response from the database. This is an essential testing component in ensuring your application, data and users’ information always remains safe.

Upon the identification of a cyber incident, our incident response team works with the client to quickly investigate and mitigate the risk, thereby minimising the potential damage to brand and reputation. This process can greatly reduce response times, limiting the extent of the impact.

Threat simulation activities mimic real-world cyber incident scenarios. These can include potential impacts to IT and security infrastructure, and what this means for organisational behaviour and communications. The exercises provide an organisation with an accurate view of how to respond to cyber incidents and identify unknown weaknesses in the response processes.

Utilising our network of verified and experienced security specialists, we offer placement opportunities for organisations who require short to medium term staffing solutions to meet the demands of their cybersecurity operations. Security specialists are able to conduct activities from penetration testing, compliance and audit, and incident response to name a few.

As an organisation matures, its cyber risk changes and with it brings new and dynamic risks to the organisation. To enable a strong understanding of the cyber risks a business is exposed to, we advise on the strategic and operational policies and practices that are required to build a mature security function and safeguard their data from the legal and financial impacts of a data breach.

Alignment amongst business executives is critical in enabling a business to direct the necessary attention and resources required for a holistic security function. By delivering insightful content and up-skilling business executives in simple and short educational formats, a business will be well equiped to deliver on the best interest of its shareholders and stakeholders.