Fun fact: as many of you know, I am an avid triathlete. Not only do I constantly strive to achieve my personal best but I also like to encourage others to achieve their goals! About five years ago, I started a running group in Tampa, Florida. Since then, the group has grown to have over 1,000  members, and I have the privilege to run with athletes from all over the world. Several years back we partnered with Team RWB, whose mission is to enrich the lives of America's veterans by connecting them to their community through physical and social activity. Almost every Wednesday, you can find me with my family, friends and neighbors running for a common purpose. Though every race is different, there are two commonalities -preparation and recovery.

Your approach to security should be the same. Prepare to avoid attacks; be ready to recover when one inevitably gets through your best defenses.

Since you read my first blog I know you are already doing everything you can with best-in-breed security systems to prevent the attack. But inevitably, no matter how much you prepare, malware will get through.

It happens.

Hackers are working every minute of every day to get into your systems. But, the good news is, with the right recovery options, you can mitigate any adverse effects and become stronger for the next go-round.

Just as important as immediate recovery (aka the beer at the finish line) is the analysis on how to get stronger and create even stronger defenses against these new types of breach.

In both situations, if you just prepared and you didn't recover, you'd run into a host of problems. First, you'd be weak and your system wouldn't be damaged. Second, you'd never get any better/stronger without learning where to improve.

But how does that work in the security world?

Our Security Incident Response Service experts get to the source of infection -where it entered the environment and what data was compromised. This identifies malware movement throughout the environment in order for organizations to minimize the cost and overall impact of any breach and identify methods to reduce future risk.

Every event is unique. Using intelligence from the Cisco Talos Security Intelligence and Research Group, this provides expedience and allows for flexibility to continuously adjust to the dynamic threat landscape.

Oh, and Retrospective Security and Attack Trajectory are mechanisms that ONLY Cisco provides.

Now, recovery from a breach is a bit more complicated than a Mylar blanket, a banana and some race analysis. Don't you want to work with a company that not only helps you prepare to your fullest but is also there to help you fully recover?

You can hear more about our security portfolio and what it can do for your business and your customers with a front row, virtual seat. Register now for Virtual Partner Summit.

This blog series explores how Cisco helps before, during and after a security breach as well as supply chain breaches. Learn how to take advantage of Cisco's security product sales incentives and how to best market them.  Come back next week to learn how Cisco helps your supply chain during a breach.