Why Prevention Isn’t Dead — It’s Evolving
A recent opinion piece in CSO Online, “From prevention to rapid response: The new era of CISO strategy,” asserts that prevention is dead, arguing that modern CISOs should shift focus away from trying to stop breaches entirely, and toward containing damage and recovering quickly.
While there’s merit in reminding us that “yes, breaches can happen,” I strongly disagree with the idea that prevention is obsolete. Indeed, preventative security remains foundational: reducing risk, minimizing attack surface, avoiding damage, and saving cost. What is changing is how prevention is done — more intelligently, more automated, more embedded into the network. And SideChannel’s Enclave is a case in point: it demonstrates that with modern tools, prevention is very much alive — perhaps even more impactful than “rapid-response only” tactics.
Problems with the “Prevention Is Dead” Premise
Let’s first outline the weaknesses in the “prevention is dead” framing:
- Cost of Breach Fallout
While response and recovery are critical, every minute of breach (or unauthorized movement) translates directly to financial, reputational, or regulatory cost. Prevention that keeps attackers from ever gaining that foothold saves exponentially more than cleaning up later. - Erosion of Trust and Brand Damage
Once data leaks, once customer trust is eroded — these are often not recoverable simply through rapid containment. Prevention serves not just the technical side, but the business side (compliance, reputation, regulation). - Scaling Threat Complexity
Attackers are more sophisticated, threats more automated. Prevention cannot fully stop zero-day or novel attacks, but properly designed prevention mechanisms make many attacks trivially easy instead of feasible. - Regulatory and Liability Expectations
Laws and frameworks increasingly expect organizations to demonstrate preventive controls (e.g. Zero Trust, least privilege, segmentation). Saying “we prefer to respond” doesn’t satisfy regulators or customers who want evidence of proactive risk management.
So no, prevention is not dead. The character of prevention is changing: from high-cost, brittle perimeter defenses to layered, automated, context-aware prevention built into every segment of the infrastructure.
How SideChannel’s Enclave Shows Prevention Still Works — And Well
SideChannel’s Enclave is a great example of how prevention is being reimagined to meet modern demands. Here are several ways Enclave proves prevention is not only alive — but getting more powerful.
| Preventive Principle | How Enclave Implements It | Benefit / Impact |
|---|---|---|
| Zero Trust & Segmentation | Enclave uses microsegmentation and Zero Trust permissions: limit who (or what) can talk to which asset, when, and how. | If an attacker gains entry (phishing, credentials, etc.), they can’t move freely — lateral movement is blocked. This reduces “blast radius.” Prevention of escalation, not just detection. |
| Visibility and Asset Intelligence | Automatic device/software discovery, continuous inventory of assets, real-time visibility into unknown or unmanaged assets. | Many breaches happen because of unknown devices or misconfigurations. Knowing what you have is a basic preventive control. |
| Vulnerability Discovery + Remediation | Real-time vulnerability scanning, prioritization of vulnerabilities, integration with patching/remediation workflows. | Preventing known vulnerabilities from being exploited before attackers exploit them is classic prevention; this reduces the ‘attack surface’. |
| Secure Access / Replace Weak Legacy Tools | Enclave replaces or augments legacy VPNs, uses overlay networks, enforces stricter access policies. | VPNs often represent a weak link; replacing them with stronger access control prevents many of the incidents that CISOs worry will lead to breach. |
| Compliance & Standards Alignment | Enclave supports or helps satisfy controls required in frameworks such as Zero Trust, NIST, ISO 27001 etc. | Preventive controls are what auditors/regulators expect. Having tools that map to them helps ensure the organization is not only responding, but actively avoiding many of the regulatory and legal mis-steps that can follow a breach. |
Prevention + Rapid Response: A Better Combo Than Either/Or
It’s a false dichotomy to suggest that if you invest in prevention, you must neglect rapid response. In practice:
- Prevention reduces how often emergencies arise.
- When prevention fails, rapid detection/response limits damage.
- Tools like Enclave enable both — prevention (via segmentation, access control, discovery) and readiness (visibility, logging, control to shut things down).
TL;DR — What I Recommend to CISOs
If I were advising a Chief Information Security Officer, here’s what I’d say:
- Always build a strong preventive backbone — asset inventory, least privilege, segmentation, vulnerability management. Without that, response efforts always cost more.
- Invest in tools that automate and embed prevention. Humans alone cannot keep up; prevention must be baked into architecture.
- Don’t abandon prevention for response. Keep both arms strong. The best outcomes happen when you’ve done the preventive work and you have a capable, rapid response plan.
Conclusion
The message in CSO Online that “prevention is dead” is provocative, but misleading. What’s changing is not that prevention doesn’t matter, but how we do prevention. SideChannel’s Enclave is concrete proof that modern prevention can be precise, automated, scalable, and built in ways that make breaches far less damaging. Prevention is very much alive — it’s just evolving from “drawbridge up around the walls” to “active, dynamic defenses everywhere.”
