Reactive vs proactive cyber security: Which is better? 

Between ever-growing numbers of digital solutions taking our data online and cybercriminals refining their methods, the number of cyber attacks organisations suffer is consistently on the rise. In fact, studies have revealed that ethical hackers discovered over 65,000 vulnerabilities in 2022 – an increase of over 20% over the previous year.  

With malicious actors becoming both more active and dangerous, it’s becoming increasingly difficult for security teams to effectively react to cyber threats before they compromise their organisations’ data and infrastructure. Instead, companies have to consider proactive cyber security approaches to mitigating cyber threats and focus some of their efforts on preventing cyberattacks whenever possible.  

Let’s explore the concepts of reactive and proactive cyber security measures, including common examples of each, and why your company needs to incorporate both into its cyber risk mitigation strategies.  

Reactive vs proactive cyber security: Why it’s important to understand the difference 

It’s not only important for organisations to understand the difference between proactive vs reactive cyber security – it’s crucial to be aware that both approaches exist at all. Knowing that proactive and reactive measures are available to you, and which best match your security needs, provides more options for developing the most comprehensive cyber risk mitigation strategies for your company. 

Additionally, understanding that proactive security is about preventing cyber attacks, while reactive measures are concerned with their detection and response, compels companies to think differently about cyber security. This distinction helps companies realise they don’t always have to be a step behind cybercriminals; instead, they can proactively strengthen their security postures and prevent security incidents from occurring in the first place.  

What is Reactive Cyber Security? 

Reactive cyber security refers to policies and controls that detect and respond to threats. In other words, reactive security measures are concerned with dealing with a cyber attack that’s in progress or after it’s occurred. If, for example, your company suffers a denial of service (DoS) attack, your security team would use reactive cyber security measures to identify it, contain its spread, block the attack, and restore any damage.  

However, reactive cyber security approaches often have an element of proactivity in them – because you have to consider them beforehand – and implement the measures used to detect and respond to threats in the first place. 

What are Reactive Cyber Security Measures? 

Here are some of the most essential reactive cyber security measures. 

Cyber risk assessment 

A cyber risk assessment allows an organisation to identify and assess threats within their IT infrastructure before implementing the policies and controls necessary to mitigate them. It enables the detection of security weaknesses within a network and enables security teams to prioritise mitigation strategies according to likelihood and severity. Consequently, performing a risk assessment puts your company in a better position to react to and contain cyber attacks, protect sensitive data, and maintain business continuity.  

Cyber risk assessments are a prime example of a reactive approach with proactive security elements, as they result in implementing appropriate measures for preventing cyber attacks. However, as they mainly reveal existing vulnerabilities instead of unknown ones, cyber risk assessments are considered a more reactive approach.  

Incident response 

Incident response (or an incident response plan (IRP)) outlines the steps a company will follow during a security event. Incident response aims to contain a cyber attack as much as possible while minimising its damage. 

Most notably, an IRP provides clear roles and responsibilities for your staff should a cyber attack occur. As well as detailing how to report malicious activity and to whom, it explains the actions that security and IT personnel, operations, and different business units should take. Your IRP should also describe when and, crucially, how to communicate the news of a security breach – in accordance with your regulatory obligations.  

An IRP helps provide clarity so your employees know what’s expected of them – which is especially important under the stress of a security breach. Additionally, your company can use the insights gained from incident response to prevent a similar one from recurring – or to respond more effectively if it happens again. 

Disaster recovery planning 

Ideally, a company’s incident response plan will be effective enough to cushion the blow of a cyber attack. If not, however, it’ll have to implement its disaster recovery plan: a set of actions and guidelines that enables it to resume operations and minimise financial and reputational losses after a cyber attack.  

A typical disaster recovery plan will involve your company reverting its infrastructure, or parts of it, to state before the malicious actor is known to have infiltrated your network. For this to be feasible, however, your company must have a robust backup process– including offsite backups to protect against cybercriminals compromising any onsite backups.    

Endpoint detection and response (EDR) 

Endpoint detection and response (EDR) tools detect and respond to cyber threats on endpoints, such as laptops, mobile devices, and servers. EDR requires installing a lightweight application on each endpoint, called an agent, which collects data about your network’s cyber risk factors. EDR solutions then use these insights to automatically block known threats in real time and to help security teams contain cyber attacks and reduce response times.  

Additionally, EDR tools use behavioural analysis to identify previously unknown threats, e.g., a file trying to disable security settings, and prevent them from gaining a further foothold with your network. Some EDR solutions also feature forensic investigation functionality, providing the starting point for threat hunts.  

Patch management  

A patch, or fix, is a software update released by a vendor to address discovered vulnerabilities in an application. Subsequently, a patch management strategy is a company’s process for discovering and installing updates for the software used within its IT ecosystem. Security teams can also enable automatic updates so an application downloads and applies patches as soon as they become available.  

What is Proactive Cyber Security?  

Instead of detecting and responding to cyber threats, proactive cyber security strategies are concerned with preventing cyber attacks. Proactive security centres around getting ahead of malicious actors by assuming a breach at all times and looking for vulnerabilities before cybercriminals can fully exploit them. 

What are Proactive Cyber Security Measures? 

Let’s turn our attention to some common proactive cyber security strategies.   

Threat hunting 

Generally, a cyberattack hasn’t occurred when a security team receives an alert about it: there’s a lag and malicious actors have been inside your network for some time. Worse, hackers have breached your security measures before that – as they’ve been carrying out reconnaissance: discovering your network’s vulnerabilities and where your most sensitive data is. Subsequently, the mean time to detect (MTTD) a threat is 200 days – followed by an additional 70 days, on average, to contain the threat (i.e., mean time to contain (MTTC)).  

Threat hunting is a proactive cyber security strategy for identifying unknown threats within a network before they can escalate into a full-blown cyber attack. By doing so, threat hunting aims to shorten the time it takes to detect security breaches by identifying cyber risk factors sooner. More importantly, with the average cost of a breach being $4.45 million, threat hunting aims to lower the financial costs of cyber attacks. At best, threat hunters can discover a security breach while hackers are still in their reconnaissance stage and remediate the threat altogether.  

As well as assuming a security breach, threat hunters can work from a particular hypothesis as a starting point, which is formed through a combination of:   

• Indicators of compromise (IOCs): signs that your network has been compromised 

• Indicators of attack (IOAs): signs that malicious actors have begun an attack 

• Behavioural analysis  

• Threat intelligence 

• Vulnerability scanning 

Continuous monitoring 

Point-in-time risk assessments, in which you periodically monitor your IT infrastructure for cyber threats, are a reactive security measure. By taking a snapshot of your present cyber security posture, you can only respond to the known threats discovered within your network. Worse, point-in-time monitoring is ineffective against the rapidly growing number and range of cyber attacks – because malicious actors will have infiltrated your network between assessments.   

In contrast, continuous monitoring is a proactive cyber security approach that allows a company to automatically track its cyber security posture in real-time. Continuous monitoring tools constantly scan your IT infrastructure for exploitable vulnerabilities so you can implement the appropriate mitigation policies and controls. Additionally, continuous monitoring solutions utilise threat intelligence and/or behavioural analysis to alert security teams to potential threats so they can address them far in advance. 

Penetration testing 

Penetration (or pen) testing is the practice of intentionally looking for vulnerabilities within your network to successfully exploit them in a controlled environment. Also referred to as ethical hacking, penetration testing requires security personnel to think like cybercriminals. By imitating a hacker, security personnel can identify and fix security flaws before an actual malicious actor has the chance to. 

Pen testing typically consists of six stages: 

1. Reconnaissance: collecting data that can potentially used to breach security measures 

2. Scanning: using automated hacking tools to check your infrastructure for vulnerabilities, e.g., open ports, misconfigurations, etc.  

3. Gaining access: using the data gathered in the previous stages to access, or penetrate,  your network 

4. Maintaining access: attempting to move laterally through your network to discover further vulnerabilities and determine critical assets and data  

5. Covering tracks: hiding evidence of security breach 

6. Reporting: detailing the findings of the testing, including a comprehensive vulnerability assessment and potential mitigation measures 

Cyber Security awareness training 

Whether reactive or proactive, your cyber security efforts will be undermined if your organisation lacks a security-conscious culture. Investing in cyber security awareness training will teach your employees how their actions can compromise security and result in breaches. Consequently, they’ll avoid simple mistakes and lapses in judgment that hackers could capitalise on. 

An employee cyber security training programme should include:  

• Common cyber threats 

• Interet usage best practices 

• How to spot phishing attempts 

• How to correctly process and store data 

• Secure remote and hybrid work practices 

• The process for reporting a suspected cyber attack 

• Their role in incident response  

Attack surface management (ASM) 

Your company’s attack surface is the combination of the vulnerabilities a malicious actor could exploit to gain unauthorised access to your network. Attack surface management (ASM) is a proactive cyber security measure that involves continuously identifying, cataloguing, classifying, and monitoring the assets and data that comprise your attack surface. Ultimately, because you can’t protect against threats that you’re unaware of, ASM allows security personnel to determine the full extent of its attack surface and use those insights to proactively mitigate or remediate potential cyber risk factors. 

ASM solutions map infrastructure to reveal:  

• What you own (assets) 

• What those assets are running (software and/or firmware) 

• What they’re exposed to (cyber threats) 

This includes assets that members of your supply chain network can access for enhanced third-party risk management and exposing instances of shadow IT. The ASM solution then enriches that data with threat intelligence from external sources to reveal further vulnerabilities.  

Which cyber security strategy should your organisation implement? 

A comprehensive cyber security plan must feature both proactive and reactive components. Proactive security measures are preferable because the more cyber attacks you can prevent from occurring altogether, the less time potentially spent in “panic mode” responding to attacks. However, reactive security measures are critical for mitigating the growing number of increasingly sophisticated unknown and emerging cyber threats. 

Combining proactive and reactive security approaches is the best to consistently strengthen your company’s cyber security posture and protect it against an ever-changing cyber risk landscape.  

How RiskXchange can help strengthen your cyber security strategies 

We can help you determine the most appropriate reactive and proactive cyber security measures for your company and ensure your cyber risk mitigation strategies contain the right balance for your security needs. 

Contact us to start your free trial and start managing your cyber risks proactively.   

Proactive vs reactive cyber security FAQs