4 Enterprise-level security best practices

Enterprise-level security is a comprehensive set of processes and tools implemented to protect an organization's digital assets and information systems from potential threats, vulnerabilities, and bad actors. Enterprise-level security is important because it safeguards an enterprise's confidentiality, integrity, and availability of critical data and resources.

No matter where you are on your journey to becoming secure at scale, there are four best practices you can implement immediately to get you closer to enterprise-level security:

1. Educate and enable

2. Implement the right tools

3. Cultivate continuous awareness

4. Keep a full inventory

1. Educate and enable

As we prioritize shifting left and involving developers in security practices, enterprise leaders are responsible for building inclusive security programs that provide devs with education and training that aligns with their languages and ecosystems. 

By engaging developers with training that meets them where they are, developers can enhance their understanding of secure coding practices, and security leaders can build empathy and buy-in to the shared responsibility model.

2. Implement the right tools

Implementing the right tools is crucial to comprehensive security coverage. Some tools to consider are:

• Access management and multi-factor authentication (MFA) solutions help control and secure user access to systems and data. 

• Data loss prevention (DLP) solutions are essential for detecting and preventing unauthorized data leaks. 

• Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) systems provide centralized monitoring and analysis of security events, and enable proactive threat detection and response.

• Application security tools are vital for enterprises looking to secure their products and applications.

• ASPM tools can help to bring data from different application security tools together and provide more context about the risks posed by different vulnerabilities, based on the setup of an application.

Organizations can significantly enhance their security posture and protect against various threats by implementing the right tools for their needs.

3. Cultivate continuous awareness

Continuous awareness is crucial in maintaining a robust security posture. Ways to cultivate a culture of continuous awareness include:

• Cloud monitoring can detect any drifts or unauthorized changes in cloud environments. 

• Disaster recovery planning and risk assessment ensure preparedness for potential incidents. 

• Software Bill of Materials (SBOM) provides a detailed inventory of components and dependencies and documents the various software libraries, frameworks, and other third-party components used in the development process. This information is crucial for facilitating a faster response to vulnerabilities.

By incorporating these practices, organizations can stay vigilant and better mitigate security risks.

4. Keep a full inventory

A full inventory means having a comprehensive and detailed understanding of all the assets and components within the organization's security landscape, including applications, systems, networks, hardware, software, and data. For security leaders, a full inventory is crucial because it allows them to: 

• Detect and respond to incidents

• Assess risks

• Implement controls

• Manage compliance

• Plan for continuity 

Achieve enterprise-level security with Snyk

Snyk is a developer security platform that can help you achieve these best practices and enterprise-level security. Snyk integrates directly into development tools, workflows, and automation pipelines with solutions like:

Take the next steps to scale your security easily and learn more about Snyk’s developer security for teams of all sizes!