The number of evidence supporting the relevance of cybersecurity for organizations of all sizes and industries grows every day as the digital economy becomes more popular. According to current research, 99 percent of computers are vulnerable to hacker attacks, which is one of the reasons for the rapid spread of so-called harmful software (or malware), with 230,000 new samples released every day.
As a result, it’s critical that businesses take immediate steps to defend themselves from cybercrime.
In this piece, we’ll go through the 10 most important actions that businesses should take when developing a cybersecurity strategy.
Given the gravity of the threat and the fact that the number of cyber attacks is increasing at an exponential rate, many governments have established entities to educate and sensitize the entire society about the importance of security in digital transactions, which now include everything from our purchases of consumer goods to our daily banking operations, as well as the majority of our work-related activities.
The British National Cyber Security Centre is one of the most active and instructional among these governmental agencies, as seen by this guidance released in 2015 and revised a few months ago, which discusses the 10 steps businesses should follow to develop a cybersecurity plan. These are outlined below.
1. Develop a risk management strategy.
Measure the cybersecurity threats that your company’s information and systems face with the same care that you do to safeguard your company’s legal, financial, and regulatory activity. After you’ve calculated the risks, create a risk management protocol that has the approval of the board and the steering committee members.
2. Strengthen the security of your network
Use specialist software firms to evaluate your security, detecting illegal access and harmful material, and protect your network from future threats.
3. Educate and raise awareness among your staff
Create security policies to decide how to utilize your systems safely. Invest time and money in raising awareness and training your workers so that they are aware of the hazards of a cyber attack and can use these rules to mitigate them if one occurs.
4. Defend the firm against malware
Anti-malware measures should be especially vigilant: one of the most common entrance points for hackers is via clicking on a link or attachment in an email.
5. Maintain control over mobile data
In this situation, mobile information does not refer to the data we produce or manage on our smartphones, but rather to all of the files you may access from the cloud or transmit to a distant server: a point at which hackers can infiltrate our system with various types of malware. Create a protocol or policy for managing such imports and exports to and from the cloud or the company’s server to avoid this.
6. Make sure the setup is safe.
When a device or system is first turned on, it is self-configured in a way that renders it particularly vulnerable to cyber assaults. As a result, it’s critical to keep the security updates that prevent infiltrations during startup up to date, and to double-check that they’re deployed correctly on a regular basis.
7. Keep track of different users’ access levels.
There are employees who must be able to view specific files and others who must be able to alter them in every company. As a result, multiple access levels are necessary, because the more information managers your organization has, the more exposed it is to cyber assaults. It’s also crucial to keep track of who has access to what files, when they’re accessed, and how they interact with them.
8. Create an incident management plan.
Even after adopting all of these measures, businesses are still vulnerable to cyber attacks. To know exactly how to proceed in the event that your firm experiences a security breach, develop protocols and conduct drills with recovery mechanisms and exercises reporting to the authorities.
9. Keep an eye on your computers and networks.
In addition to keeping track of who has access to the server or cloud, it is critical to ensure that the organization’s systems and networks are functioning correctly, to verify their condition at all times, and to identify any odd activity that may indicate an impending assault in real time.
10. Create a protocol for remotely accessing information.
Companies must have clear guidelines on how workers should work remotely from their mobile devices, which is another frequent entry point for any sort of cyber assault, just as we advised previously creating procedures for uploading and downloading information from the cloud.
Because the hazards of a cyber assault should not be underestimated, your firm should not cut corners when it comes to designing and implementing a cybersecurity plan. We hope that these first ten stages will assist you in developing a rough draft of it.
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