The oil and gas industry’s global supply chain uses a vast array of information technology (IT) and operational technology (OT) systems. These systems require constant cybersecurity protection to ensure energy flows efficiently and productively around the world to meet global needs. Hackers know that IT and OT systems are often interdependent and closely linked. In fact, the recent Colonial Pipeline attack resulted from the successful breach of Colonial’s IT network.

Traditionally, most organizations have had siloed departments wherein teams’ activities are highly separated and the objectives within organizational structures are divided. This operational methodology has brought about friction – especially within the IT department, where developers and ITOps lack collaboration.

Things tend to slow down for many businesses at the end of the year. As the holidays roll in and employees take time off with their families, December is generally a time to take stock of what transpired over the year and start looking ahead to the next one. Unfortunately, that’s not how cybercriminals operate.

For many organizations, cybersecurity is an overwhelming challenge. New threats emerge seemingly in the blink of an eye, and IT and security teams are constantly reacting to the moves of bad actors who always remain one or two steps ahead and get to dictate where and when their attacks are carried out. As you might expect, a reactionary approach to cybersecurity is not ideal. It’s typically borne of necessity due to undermanned teams or inadequate resources. Ultimately, it is destined to fail.

Evidence continues to mount that it isn’t a matter of if, but when and how an organization will be attacked. So, we are seeing Security Operations Centers (SOCs) narrow the focus of their mission to become detection and response organizations. As they look to address additional use cases, including threat detection and monitoring, investigation, incident response and hunting, data becomes incredibly more important.

During AWS re:Invent 21, I had the honor of hosting Phil Weeks, Senior technical advisor at IHG for an informative session on IHG’s security modernization journey during the pandemic which started with replacing a legacy SIEM.

Arctic Wolf has been recognized as a November 2021 Gartner Peer Insights Strong Performer for Vulnerability Assessment. Gartner categorizes the Vulnerability Assessment market as “vendors that provide capabilities to identify, categorize and manage vulnerabilities. These include unsecure system configurations or missing patches, as well as other security-related updates in the systems connected to the enterprise network directly, remotely or in the cloud.”

The pride of Arctic Wolf is our Pack. Now more than 1,200 Wolves strong, our team’s dedication, drive, and commitment to ending cyber risk has enabled unprecedented growth and innovation for Arctic Wolf. As we close out 2021 and look to the year ahead, we wanted to take a moment and reflect on a few of the highlights from the past year.

2021 was a busy year for the cybersecurity industry. It began in January, as we were just beginning to understand the impact and massive scope of the SolarWinds attack. Then Kaseya happened. Then the Colonial Pipeline was breached. And now, as 2021 comes to a close, we’re in the early days of the Log4j crisis that will take all of next year—if not longer—to fully unpack, understand and mitigate.

As technology continues to change rapidly, and so do the tactics cybercriminals use. Responding to these changes requires adapting your security operations center (SOC), or eventually, you may encounter a security incident. Security is a journey, not a destination. You don’t just become secure and move on to another project. Instead, you continuously observe, adapt, and improve.