Talking through that busted bracket, how defense can help shore it up.

I feel your pain. My bracket got busted as well. We join with 8m others who watched a 16 seed beat a number 1 seed.

As a college athlete I remember sitting in the film room my freshman year and asking the question of why we were watching film for six hours when we could have been on the court practicing.  I’ll never forget what coach said to me that day: “how much easier do you think defense is, when you know what the guys going to do before he even does it?”…

In basketball; offense steals the show.  Watching the tournament this past weekend was an incredible example of this very topic.  Top teams, that had been glorified all year for their remarkable offensive prowess were sent packing after losses to lesser ranked teams.  These teams didn’t approach the game with the idea of outscoring their opponent, rather out working, out hustling and playing defense as hard as they possibly could.

I salute the guy that jumps to try and block that dunk and instead gets poster-ized.  I salute the guy trying to lockdown that shooter on the perimeter and loses his balance on a crossover because he doesn’t want to give the offense an inch.  I salute the team that focused on energy and hustle rather than the highlight reel.

In so many ways defense on a basketball court and security in Financial Services require the same foundational points, so that your Financial Services “bracket” does not get busted.  Let’s take a look at the four elements to defense/security.

Team defense or Prevention

Practice and help defense or Detection and Response

Communication or Integration and Automation

Knowing your opponent or Intelligence.

Prevention

On the court, good team defense keeps the ball moving side to side on the perimeter, forcing the offense to search for a seam or crack and often times settling for a long distant uncomfortable heave from distance.

In a financial services firm, Prevention blocks more threats outright.  This is the first line of defense.  Stop malware before it even reaches your network or endpoint, so that IT spends less time remediating infections later.

Detection and Response

Even great defensive teams, allow that drive to penetrate the perimeter and disrupt the defensive scheme.  When this happens, great defenses recover, help defense slides into place, rotations are quick and smooth forcing the ball back out and away from the basket.

Financial Services firms cannot rely on prevention alone.  The industry average for detecting a threat on a network is 100 days. 100 DAYS! Firms can’t fix what they have no knowledge of.  Once a threat breaches your initial defense, the next step is to mitigate, and fast.  The goal is to minimize the time between detection and response.

Explore this website for more information and for more on Cisco’s security for Financial Services.

www.cisco.com/go/fsi

Tune in next week when we explore Integration, automation and intelligence. Now I’m off to watch some more film!