June 29, 2023 | Dennis Bailey
If you were about to embark on an adventurous trek into some unfamiliar territory, wouldn’t you want to have a seasoned guide at your side, someone who knows the terrain and can help you avoid threats on the way to your destination?
In an ideal world, businesses would have a dedicated team of security experts, each with years of experience and current training on all the latest technologies. We understand that is not always possible as smaller and even sometimes larger corporations may not have the resources or expertise to build a full-fledged internal security team.
That is where we come in. In the uncharted and ever evolving security landscape, we can be your guide to help you navigate the terrain and help you successfully reach the destinations your business has set for success.
An Extension of Your Team
Being an extension of your team starts with understanding your needs from a business perspective. We invest time in learning how you operate, including understanding industry-specific challenges and familiarizing ourselves with your organization, its departments, and the workflows required to transact your business. This gives us insight to what is important to you, and it helps us tailor our security solutions.
On the technology side, we strive to understand your organization’s goals when it comes to IT. We spend time getting to know your technology stack so that we can make security recommendations that make the most sense. We also try to understand each application and how it fits into your business goals and objectives. Through understanding of your data, users, and workflows, we are in a much better position to understand threats to your applications, and we can tailor our security approach as a result.
Being an extension of your team also means we try to work together as seamlessly as possible. This includes embedding ourselves with your team either on-site or by participating in regular virtual meetings. This helps foster a sense of teamwork and allows for real-time collaboration and communication.
We prioritize clear and effective communication and make ourselves available to respond rapidly. When possible, we use shared collaboration tools or platforms that both your team and your client’s team can access. This allows for instantaneous communication and ensures that everyone is on the same page.
Fitting into your company’s culture is another priority for us. Security consultants are often perceived as being difficult to work with — sometimes rightfully so. Perhaps it is due to the hacker ethos which often represents a spirit of independence, thinking outside the box, questioning the status quo, and sometimes demonstrating rebelliousness. These kinds of attitudes often conflict with good client relations and clash with corporate cultures.
At Exfil Security, we are focused on adapting to different work and cultural environments and holding ourselves to the highest professional and ethical standards. We emphasize collaboration, conflict resolution, and consensus-building as opposed to fostering a lone wolf mentality or enforcing one-size-fits-all solutions. All our consultants complete soft-skill training to help with these skillsets that are often lacking with highly technical individuals.
Mini Case Study
A client in the financial sector engaged Exfil to initially check the security of various externally-facing client applications. We rolled our sleeves up and conducted the first few tests only to discover that there were a number of serious vulnerabilities in the applications. After further analysis with the client, we determined that many of the issues were systemic to the environment and were the result of not having a mature security program.
Rather than performing additional tests, we proceeded jointly with the client to review their existing security architecture, including the network, infrastructure, and application layers. We also worked with the development team to review their coding practices. We worked together as a team during the assessment, using Slack for internal communications and making ourselves available during the work week and after hours.
The result of the exercise ended up improving not only the security of their applications but also the general security posture and culture within the company. The company implemented a more modular and secure service-based architecture that relied on various cloud components. Their developers began writing code in a way that minimized the introduction of security vulnerabilities and security began to be implemented earlier into their DevOps pipeline. The goal became to make security an integral part of every process within the company, creating a more robust and proactive defense against threats. Today we continue the relationship with the client although security tests rarely result in any significant findings like those early days.
What can you expect when you work with Exfil?
You can expect to work with a company which prides itself on understanding your needs, providing excellent service, and integrating seamlessly into existing teams, where together we take a collaborative and holistic approach to your cybersecurity needs.
You can expect us to function not just as a service provider, but as a strategic partner, aligning our efforts with your business objectives. This implies any security measures we recommend would be designed to facilitate, not hinder, business operations and growth.
In addition, understanding your unique business needs means that the solutions provided are not generic, but tailored specifically for your business model, industry standards, and regulatory environment. This increases the effectiveness of your security strategy and makes it much more manageable for you to implement and maintain.
At Exfil Security we are committed to improving your security posture without compromising important business objectives. Whether you are a startup looking to implement your first security program or a large company trying to strengthen your infrastructure, we are willing to help. Give us a call today and let’s embark on this journey together toward robust security and business success.