How mature should a business be?

Deception serves different functions depending on a business’s maturity level.

In the Gartner Hype Cycle Report it is made clear that organizations of all security maturity should be examining the value that deception can bring them - allowing them to fuse prevention and detection into a fully strategic security operations model.

Most organizations’ stance on cyber deception stems from the belief that only mature businesses can incorporate deception into their current cybersecurity strategy. This is a common misconception that keeps many organizations from making the most out of a strategic proactive approach against their adversaries.

Incorporating cyber deception into your strategy is not about maturity - it‘s about wanting to make intelligent business-driven decisions.

Gartner defines these as decisions that allow organizations to detect attack vectors well before they get anywhere near their networks. In their thought-provoking Hype Cycle for Security Operations report, Gartner shows not only where cyber deception stands in the hype cycle, but also how the level of maturity in any organization’s security operations may not be relevant to the central question: Am I ready for cyber deception?

Deception technology seems to be oriented towards high-maturity organizations, but the truth is it can offer security benefits to almost any size of company. Nowadays, even small or local businesses are targeted by threat actors. Even worse, these businesses are often less prepared and have fewer resources when it comes to network security.

The truth is, anyone looking for early detection, faster MTTR, and fewer false positives can benefit from deception. Even smaller companies can use deception to keep networks up during an attack, improve security posture, and quickly detect attacks.

In fact, deception can often be ideal for smaller companies. Many campaigns and tools don’t require any additional investment and some are even run by a third party. This allows a tiny to non-existent security team to put up a defense that gives them a chance against motivated attackers.

Deception, in summary, can be applied in different, creative ways according to an organization’s size, goals, and resources. That makes it a great option for larger organizations as well as small businesses that need to have an agile response to any potential attacks.