Your Next Shift: Moving between cybersecurity and cyber resilience

Managing and mitigating cyber threats requires a holistic approach. While the size of the average business tech stack shrank in 2023 from 323 to 291 apps for middle-market companies, that still leaves an astoundingly large attack surface for security experts to monitor. And while a robust cybersecurity posture is essential to safeguarding your data and ensuring continuity of operations, no defense measures are 100% effective. 

In fact, according to the Harvard Business Review, in 2023 data breaches increased by 20% from the previous year. There are a number of factors that went into that, including cloud misconfigurations, new kinds of ransomware attacks, and increased exploitation of vendor systems.

So what can you do to better protect your business from potential bad actors? It all starts with seeing the full picture. Historically, business leaders may have weighed the benefits and risks of investing in cybersecurity and cyber resilience measures. But it’s time to start thinking about these two concepts as two halves of a cohesive whole—as opposed to an either-or proposition. 

Defining Cybersecurity and Cyber Resilience 

While many experts place cybersecurity under the umbrella of cyber resilience, there are some distinctions to be made between the two. Here is how we define cybersecurity and cyber resilience:

• Cybersecurity involves preventing, detecting, and responding to cyber threats. It encompasses the practices and technologies that are designed to defend devices, networks, data, and programs from cyber attacks. Cybersecurity emphasizes the use of proactive measures like firewalls, antivirus software, encryption, access control, and regular updates.  
• Cyber resilience, ​in contrast, refers to an organization’s ability to maintain its core functions and recover quickly from cyber attacks, disruptions, or failures. Cyber resilience stems from assuming incidents will happen, rather than only trying to prevent them. Being cyber resilient ensures that you are as prepared as possible to respond, handle and recover from incidents quickly. It emphasizes the continuity of operations and prioritizes redundancy, backup and recovery plans, incident response procedures, and business continuity planning. 

When contrasting these concepts, it almost seems like they are, in fact, related but separate measures that businesses need to take. In reality, however, the relationship between cybersecurity and cyber resilience is much more complex and symbiotic.  

Cybersecurity and Cyber Resilience in Practice 

In practice, comparing cybersecurity against cyber resilience is somewhat reductive. Both are critical concepts that build upon and support one another, and both are absolutely critical to business data security in the modern age. Your organization is not fully protected without either. That’s because cybersecurity and cyber resilience build on and feed into one another, and together, they help ensure your business is covered regardless. 

How Cybersecurity Strengthens Cyber Resilience 

A robust cybersecurity posture is the foundation for your business’s cyber resilience. With multi-layered tools like firewalls, intrusion detection systems, encryption, and access control, cybersecurity works to reduce the risk of cyber attacks. Cybersecurity also employs preventive measures that help mitigate the impact of data breaches before they can have organization-wide (and often devastating) effects. By establishing a strong perimeter defense and continuously monitoring for threats, cybersecurity helps to maintain a stable and secure operating environment, which is crucial for the overall resilience of the organization.

Beyond that, cybersecurity practices like incident response planning and threat intelligence are critical components of cyber resilience. Incident response plans ensure that when a breach does occur, your organization can quickly contain the threat, limit damage, and reduce recovery time.

Threat intelligence, by the same token, provides ongoing insights into emerging threats and vulnerabilities, enabling your organization to adapt its defenses proactively. This proactive stance not only helps in preventing potential incidents but also prepares the organization to respond effectively to ensure continuity of operations.  

Cyber Resilience Enhances Cybersecurity 

Cyber resilience prepares organizations to not only defend against cyber threats, but also to quickly recover in the event of a breach. Resilience measures such as regular backups, disaster recovery planning, and business continuity strategies provide a robust framework that supports and extends the effectiveness of traditional cybersecurity defenses.

By implementing these measures, organizations can quickly restore critical systems and data after an incident, thereby reducing downtime and limiting the impact of cyber attacks. This ability to recover ensures that the organization remains operational, which is a critical aspect of a strong security posture. 

A Continuous Feedback Loop 

When looking at the end results of cybersecurity vs. cyber resilience, the two form an ongoing feedback loop. Both rely heavily on regular monitoring, evaluation, and improvement to work, and security experts often take lessons from one to shore up the other. By mutually reinforcing one another, cybersecurity and cyber resilience are the keys to developing a dynamic and adaptive security posture.

Think of it this way: Cybersecurity measures like threat intelligence gathering help to identify and neutralize potential threats before they can cause harm. This protective layer establishes the initial defense framework crucial for minimizing vulnerabilities and threats. When a cyber incident does occur, however, cyber resilience ensures that the organization maintains operations and minimizes downtime. Then, a post incident analysis takes place. The insights from this analysis are then fed back into the cybersecurity to drive continuous improvement, which enhances overall resilience. 

Shared Objectives 

At the end of the day, the goals of both cybersecurity and cyber resilience are interconnected: to prevent data attacks where possible and to recover quickly when one does get through. Investing equally in both helps ensure that your organizational assets are protected and that disruptions are minimized. Together, both concepts form an integrated approach to creating a strong security posture and maintaining long-term operational stability and security.  

Boost Your Resilience with Tailored Cybersecurity Solutions from Inversion6 

At Inversion6, we offer tailored cybersecurity risk management solutions to meet your unique organizational needs. From managed SIEM and managed XDR services to SaaS security assessments, fractional CISO support, and incident response tabletop exercises our team has ​​the expertise and capabilities to help you establish a strong cybersecurity plan and enhance your cyber resilience. 

Reach out to us today to begin fortifying your security posture.