Intelligent CIO North America Issue 35 | Page 38

TALKING

‘‘ business

Actually getting everyone in the typical organization to adhere to cybersecurity best practices is often easier said than done . account of an employee that they have compromised or of a malicious insider who is trying to access a system that he or she doesn ’ t need .
Those anomalies would be much harder to detect if you managed CRM system requests manually because you wouldn ’ t have a collection of data points that establish a baseline of normal request activity . breadcrumbs that IT teams can monitor to detect unusual behavior by users across the organization .
Imagine that you automate the process employees use to request access to a CRM system . That process would systematically generate an array of data about access requests , including how often the requests appear , which user groups and departments they originate from and even the times of day when employees typically make requests . Based on this data , you could detect anomalous requests , such as those that appear at an unusual time of day or from a user who belongs to a group that does not normally access the CRM system . Those anomalous requests could be a sign of attempts by attackers to misuse the
In this example , process automation doesn ’ t encourage users to behave more securely , but it does help the IT team to detect security risks associated with non-technical users that might otherwise go unnoticed .
On its own , process automation will certainly not protect your business from every cybersecurity risk it faces today . But process automation does do much to plug gaps in cybersecurity strategies , especially when it comes to activities undertaken by non-technical users . It helps security teams to monitor and validate actions by other employees who might inadvertently place the organization at risk . It also makes workflows as secure as possible by default , which significantly reduces the chances that well-intentioned employees might accidentally circumvent security rules . p
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