Many people remember where they were during historic events. Whether it is a personal, or a public occurrence, it’s just human nature to remember these significant moments. Every profession also has its share of memorable events. In medicine, those who were in the profession will remember where they were when they heard about the first heart transplant or the discovery of a cure for a particular disease. In cybersecurity, there are similar events that stick in the mind.

IT environments in businesses are often volatile. The value of hardware might depreciate over time. There is constant evolution in the world of software. Existing configurations go through a variety of transitions. While some of these updates are permitted since they are part of the organization's regular patching cycle, others raise red flags because they appear out of nowhere.

Changes to your IT devices, systems and servers are inevitable — but they can introduce critical security weaknesses. A file integrity monitoring (FIM) solution will track changes to your system and configuration files so you can promptly verify patch rollouts and investigate and mitigate unauthorized modifications — helping your business maintain a strong security posture and ensure ongoing regulatory compliance.

In response to increasing societal concerns about the way businesses store, process, and protect the sensitive data they collect from their customers, governments and standardization organizations have enacted a patchwork of regulations and laws. Some of these are generic regulations (CCPA, GDPR), while others are industry specific (SOX, NERC, HIPAA, PCI DSS).

Compliance is an essential aspect of every organization, and in business terms, it entails ensuring that organizations of all sizes, and their personnel, comply with national and international regulations, such as GDPR, HIPAA, and SOX. When guaranteeing compliance, many firms frequently overlook security. Gary Hibberd states that compliance with laws or regulations is only the starting point for cybersecurity.

Law firms owe their clients several types of duties, such as the duty of care, duty to provide competent representation, as well as other ethical responsibilities. Their duties even extend to former clients and must be upheld long after they no longer have a formal attorney-client relationship. More specifically, lawyers have a duty to not disclose any information about a client or prospective client, unless that individual consents, or an exception is dictated by law.

The IT ecosystems of enterprises are highly dynamic. Typically, organizations react to this volatility by investing in asset discovery and Security Configuration Management (SCM). These core controls enable businesses to compile an inventory of authorized devices and monitor the configurations of those assets. In addition to managing changes to their infrastructure, organizations must also keep an eye on the changes made to essential files.

File integrity monitoring (FIM) started back in 1997 when Gene Kim launched Tripwire and its “Change Audit” solution. Just a few years later, Change Audit became FIM; this rebranded tool worked with the 12 security controls identified in Visa’s Cardholder Information Security Program (CISP). CISP became PCI DSS 1.0, and things continued to evolve after that. Which brings us to the present day.

Malware attacks are escalating. For example, there were 57 million IoT malware attacks in the first half of 2022, a staggering 77% increase year to date. Unfortunately, traditional signature-based antivirus and sand-boxing technologies are insufficient against today’s sophisticated attacks. In particular, advanced persistent threat (APT) viruses, Trojan malware and zero-day malware often evade these defenses.

File integrity monitoring is essential for information security because it helps quickly identify unauthorized changes to critical files that could lead to data loss and business disruptions. File changes may be your first or only indication that you’ve been hacked in a cyberattack or compromised through errors by staff or system update processes.