Prevention instead of Reaction: How a Compromise Assessment Protects your Data

At a time when cyber threats are constantly increasing, proactive action is crucial. InfoGuard’s compromise assessment offers a preventive solution to protect your data from potential security breaches. This article shows how our comprehensive analysis process helps you to recognise security risks at an early stage and respond to them proactively.

Overview of the compromise assessment – what is it exactly?

InfoGuard’s compromise assessment is a customised security audit designed to proactively identify potential security breaches in companies’ IT systems and applications. This highly specialised service uses a combination of state-of-the-art technologies and the expertise of highly qualified security experts from InfoGuard’s Computer Security Incident Response Team (CSIRT).

Specifically, the compromise assessment aims to uncover suspicious activities, anomalies and potential vulnerabilities that could be indicators of compromises. This includes a comprehensive check of log files, network traffic and other relevant data sources in order to react to possible threats at an early stage.

The main objective of the compromise assessment is to minimise the security risks for the company and to strengthen the security position by taking preventive measures before serious security incidents can occur. By thoroughly analysing and evaluating potential risks, the compromise assessment provides valuable insights that enable the company to anticipate security threats and continuously improve the security infrastructure.

The Computer Security Incident Response Team (CSIRT): the fire brigade for your security incidents

An important aspect of the compromise assessment is the responsiveness and expertise of InfoGuard’s Computer Security Incident Response Team (CSIRT). This highly qualified team is not only responsible for responding to security incidents that have already taken place such as ransomware attacks, server compromises and other attacks on companies, but also for carrying out compromise assessments.

This means that the compromise assessments are carried out by the same team that has responded to previous attacks, focusing clearly on potential security breaches and detecting them at an early stage. This seamless integration of responsiveness and prevention enables InfoGuard to offer its customers comprehensive protection against security risks and support them in the ongoing optimisation of their security infrastructure.

The compromise assessment process

We’ve divided the process into various steps to enable a comprehensive insight into the compromise assessment process:

1. Preparation and planning
   •    Parties define the systems and applications to be checked.
   •    Definition of resources and schedules for the assessment.
2. Rollout of the forensic agent
   •    Installation of our forensic agent in the customer’s entire infrastructure for comprehensive data collection.
3. Execution of the analysis
   •    40-60 hours of analysis by highly specialised security experts.
   •    Combination of automated tools and manual analyses.
4. Compromise identification
   •    Classification of potential security breaches by the expert team.
   •    Differentiation between acute threats and potential risks.
5. Parties work through the findings together
   •    Discussion of the results with the customer.
   •    Parties work together to develop measures to eliminate security gaps.
6. Reporting and recommendations
   •    Preparation of a comprehensive report summarising the results and recommendations.
7. Follow-up and support
   •    Support with the implementation of recommended measures.
   •    Planning of a continuous monitoring and optimisation of the security infrastructure.

Our recommendations for effective security practice

Finally, we recommend three of the most important findings from our security practice as a foundation for your own security activities:

• Thorough preparation and planning are key to the success of the compromise assessment.
• Close co-operation between the customer and InfoGuard is essential throughout the entire process.
• Continuous monitoring and optimisation of the security infrastructure are crucial for long-term protection.

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