Together with the National Cybersecurity Center of Excellence (NCCoE), the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has released a series of practice guides that focuses on data integrity. Data integrity is the property that records have not been altered in an unauthorized manner. Tripwire is very proud to have contributed and collaborated with other technology vendors in the development of these practice guides.

Challenges to Data Integrity

Destructive malware, ransomware, malicious insider activity, and even honest mistakes all set the stage for why organizations need to quickly detect and respond to an event that impacts data integrity. Businesses must be confident that these events are detected quickly and responded to appropriately.

Attacks against an organization’s data can impact business operations, revenue, and reputation. Examples of data integrity attacks include unauthorized insertion, deletion, or modification of data to corporate information such as emails, employee records, financial records, and customer data.

Some organizations have experienced systemic attacks that force operations to cease. While ransomware remains the most prominent attack method, other data integrity attacks may be more dynamic, targeting machines, spreading laterally across networks, and continuing to cause damage throughout an organization. These behaviors are usually targeted against multiple files at a time.  After all, for most organizations there would be little impact if a single file is held hostage. Most attackers tend to choose high impact over subtle craftiness.  This makes the events easily detectable if the correct monitoring tools are in place.

NIST Cybersecurity Framework

NIST published version 1.1 of the Cybersecurity Framework in April 2018 to provide guidance for protecting and developing resiliency for critical infrastructure and other sectors. The framework core contains five functions, outlined in a handy, easy-to-remember graphic:

  • Identify – Develop an organizational understanding to manage cybersecurity risk (Read more...)