Alert Readiness Framework
Bridging Business and Cybersecurity in a Modern Framework — Pioneering a Business-Centric Approach to Achieve Cyber Resilience in Today’s Digital Age.
The Alert Readiness Framework represents a new era in which business and cybersecurity are intertwined, driving resilience and value in an ever-evolving landscape.
The defense readiness condition (DEFCON) is an alert state used by the US Military for decades. ARF enables the cybersecurity industry to adopt the same mindset.
An Innovative Approach to Cybersecurity
What is Alert Readiness Framework?
The Alert Readiness Framework (ARF) is a cybersecurity framework that introduces a alert level system, similar to that used in military contexts. Developed by Devoteam Cyber Trust, ARF enables organisations to implement adaptable and context-aware security controls and response plans based on real-time threat levels.
What is its purpose?
ARF aims to achieve the following objectives:
Establish Alert Levels:
Implement an alert system that varies according to the severity of cyber threats.
Contextualised Response Plans:
Associate each alert level with a specific set of controls and actions.
Common Language for All:
Create a common cybersecurity language that is understandable to everyone in the organisation, from the CEO to regular employees.
What are the benefits?
Didactic and Proactive Approach
Makes engagement in security practices more accessible and interesting for everyone, regardless of their level of technical knowledge.
Active Participation of Everyone
Encourages a cybersecurity culture that involves all employees, not just technical teams.
Strategic Alignment with Business
Integrates cybersecurity into business strategies and operations, enabling a more comprehensive approach to security.
Efficient Resource Utilisation
The contextualised and adaptable approach allows for more effective resource allocation.
Implementation Insights
By keeping these insights in mind, organisations can ensure a smooth and effective implementation of ARF, aligning their cyber resilience strategy with evolving business needs.
Phased Approach
Adopting ARF doesn’t require an overhaul of your current systems. Start with a phased approach, integrating ARF’s principles gradually to ensure seamless adaptation and minimal disruptions.
Cross-functional Collaboration
ARF’s success lies in bridging the gap between business and IT. Encourage cross-functional teams to collaborate from the get-go. This promotes a shared understanding and ownership of the framework’s implementation.
Regular Training & Awareness
For ARF to be effectively embedded, continuous training and awareness programs are vital. Ensure that all levels of the organisation understand the value and mechanics of ARF, making its application second nature.
Continuous Feedback Loops
During and post-implementation, set up mechanisms to capture feedback from all stakeholders. This ensures that any challenges faced are addressed promptly, and the framework remains agile and responsive to the organisation’s unique needs.
Tailored Alert Levels
While ARF provides general alert level guidelines, tailor them to reflect your organisation’s specific risk profile and industry nuances. This ensures that responses are always aligned with actual threats and business context.
Alignment with Existing Protocols
Before implementing, map ARF’s protocols against your current ones. This helps in identifying synergies and gaps, ensuring a smoother integration process.
External Partner Engagement
If your organisation relies on third-party vendors or external partners, ensure they are familiar with your ARF protocols. This ensures a consistent and coordinated response in the face of threats.
Periodic review and update
The cyber landscape is ever-evolving. Schedule periodic reviews of your ARF implementation to ensure it stays updated with the latest threats and best practices.
The four pillars of the
Alert Readiness Framework
Technology
Tailored tech solutions are aligned to each alert level, ensuring tools and infrastructure are optimally utilised.
People
Training and awareness are synchronised with the ARF levels. As threats escalate, people are prepared and aware of their roles.
Process
Defined processes for each level ensure a coordinated and seamless response. Our multidisciplinary teams can ensure full support for your solutions or product development.
Business Controls
Beyond just the technical, ARF aligns business controls with cybersecurity measures, ensuring business continuity even in heightened alert situations.
ARF provides organisations with a clear, scalable, and business-centric approach to cybersecurity. It’s about being prepared, proactive, and always aligned with the evolving threat landscape.
Core Components of Alert Readiness Framework
With these core components, ARF offers a comprehensive and business-centric approach to cybersecurity, ensuring not just technical defenses but a holistic organisational resilience.
Alert Level Definition
Just as a weather system has classifications for storms, ARF establishes distinct alert levels tailored to the varying degrees of cyber threats. Each level corresponds to specific protocols and responses, ensuring an organisation can scale its defenses proportionally to the threat.
Integrated Business Strategy
ARF is not just a cybersecurity framework; it’s a business resilience strategy. It recognises that cyber threats are not just IT issues but can affect an entire organisation. By integrating business strategy with cybersecurity measures, ARF ensures that every part of an organisation is prepared and aligned.
Dynamic Response Protocol
Depending on the alert level, ARF outlines dynamic response protocols. These are not just technical solutions but encompass business processes, communication strategies, and more. They are designed to be proactive, ensuring threats are mitigated before they escalate.
Holistic Stakeholder Engagement
ARF promotes the involvement of all stakeholders, from IT to top-level management. Everyone has a role to play in cybersecurity, and ARF provides the tools and guidance for each stakeholder to understand and execute their part effectively.
Continuous Learning & Adaptation
Cyber threats evolve, and so should our defenses. ARF incorporates mechanisms for continuous feedback, learning, and adaptation. It ensures that the framework remains updated and organisations stay a step ahead of potential threats.
Harmonisation with Existing Frameworks
ARF doesn’t reinvent the wheel. Instead, it’s designed to complement and harmonise with existing cybersecurity standards and best practices, like ISO 27001. This ensures a seamless integration into an organisation’s current operations.
Business Process Integration
At its heart, ARF understands that cybersecurity is a business issue. It’s built to integrate seamlessly into an organisation’s business processes, ensuring that cybersecurity becomes a natural and ingrained part of daily operations.
Get ready to explore Alert Readiness Framework’s First Edition now!
The complete framework is already available and you can download it for free.
A dedicated member of our team will reach out to you personally to discuss how we can assist you in seamlessly integrating this valuable framework into your organisation’s operations.
FAQ
Check our Frequently Asked Questions to know more about Alert Readiness Framework (ARF)
What is the Alert Readiness Framework (ARF)?
Alert Readiness Framework is a paper, a set of guidelines. The framework is based on 2 main pillars: setting up a dynamic alert level dashboard and being ready to deploy an action plan specific to each alert level.
It’s a registered trademark, developed with the investment of Devoteam.
Why another cybersecurity framework?
The success of any business today is heavily dependent on technology, making cybersecurity an essential component of overall business strategy, but usually, cybersecurity management practice focuses on technical controls and support processes such as legal, compliance, and HR but not necessarily on the effective business aspects. Cybersecurity should no longer be considered in silos.
The Alert Readiness Framework is designed to help organisations take a more proactive and holistic approach to managing their cybersecurity risks. By establishing an alert state system and preparing all business processes, support processes, technology, and people to respond to each alert level, the framework can help organisations identify potential security threats and respond proactively to prevent them from becoming disruptive to the business.
What is the value proposition of the AR Framework?
By adopting the ARF, organisations can build a strong cybersecurity posture focused on critical assets and processes, using a risk-based approach to identify and manage cybersecurity risks. This, in turn, can help to ensure that the organisation is more resilient in the face of evolving cyber threats.
By adopting a more integrated and proactive approach to cybersecurity, organisations can better protect themselves against the rising threat of cybercrime and ensure the continuity of their critical business functions.
Build Cyber Security Resilience: the ARF will make businesses more resilient by lowering the impact of incidents.
The framework helps organisations to:
- Reduce the opportunity for incident to occur
- Reduce the impact in case it still occurs
- Have a strategic approach of cybersecurity investments with the use of a dashboard
- Align all organisation towards Cybersecurity readiness
- Every resource as part of extended cybersecurity team
- Controls
- Improved / continuous
Implementing the Framework aid to reduce the costs of IT security
Security is a trade-off:
- Cost-benefit analysis
- Security vs. Usability
- Higher risk = more controls = more tradeoff
Ensuring an adequate level of resilience against threats targeting information and communication technologies is an act of balance for those responsible. Striving for a higher and more mature level of security increases the impact on the business and their processes. Further, the costs for maintaining a new and higher level of security increase. Resulting from investments in the following areas:
- Increasing the head count for personnel with a security related role
- Implementation of new controls
- Improving existing controls
- Implementation of new security services and technologies
- Education of existing personnel
These costs directly relate to security. As stated previously there is a higher impact on the business which also translates into a potential increase in costs. The evaluation needs to be done in close alignment with the business in order to get valid and reliable estimations. With this information at hand senior management and decision makers can get a clear understanding of the costs directly, indirectly and overall related to a certain level of security.
The Alert Readiness Framework positively affects the cost for security with the utilisation of the security levels. The levels are increased and decreased by defined circumstances and corresponding controls are active only for the current level. Resulting in an increase of costs for ascending levels consequently only for the time they are active.
What is ARF’s target market and client profile?
C-Level management of mature companies/corporations which are already prepared to manage incidents and prepare their business continuity.
What are Devoteam’s products and services associated with the framework?
Services and expertise (Cyber Trust, Digital Impulse, Innovative Tech, Creative Tech).
The deliverables will be :
- Consultants trained to implement the Framework within the organisation
- The possibility to use GRC technology/customisation (integration with the organisation tools).