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Safeguards

Safeguards are the things that reduce risk and increase resilience.

Definition

A safeguard is any policy, process, architecture, behavior, technology, or activity that protects assets, reduces likelihood, reduces impact, improves detection, or improves recovery.

Common safeguard families

Safeguard family Examples
Administrative Policy, standard, procedure, training
Identity MFA, least privilege, access review, privileged access management
Data Classification, encryption, retention, loss prevention
Endpoint Hardening, EDR, patching, device management
Network Segmentation, DNS control, secure access, traffic inspection
Application Secure SDLC, testing, code review, secrets management
Resilience Backup, recovery plan, continuity plan, tabletop exercise
Monitoring Logging, alerting, detection rules, case management

Safeguard page pattern

A safeguard article should answer:

  • What asset does it protect?
  • What risk does it reduce?
  • What weakness does it address?
  • What evidence proves it exists and operates?
  • Who owns it?