Cybersecurity Awareness Month marks a time in the year when a great emphasis is placed on helping individuals and businesses protect themselves online as threats to technology and confidential data become more commonplace. Since the outbreak of the pandemic, businesses worldwide have accelerated their digitalization. Now, with businesses leveraging digital solutions more than ever before, hackers continue to find ways to penetrate. According to a VMware report, 60% of respondents admitted to having experienced a ransomware attack in the past 12 months.
The questions remain: what impact do these kind of cyber attacks have on the industry? How can businesses minimize cyber attacks? To better understand current cybersecurity best practices and what the future looks like, MyTech Decisions spoke to a range of industry experts on the topic.
Cybersecurity Best Practices To Consider
Businesses cannot overlook their cybersecurity strategies, and it certainly shouldn’t take a cyber attack to expose those weaknesses before any issues are rectified. Rather, cybersecurity should be an ongoing practice that involves the appropriate measures in both internal and external functions of any organization. Speaking of best practices, John Street, Operations Director at Agilitas, advises businesses to “ensure that their IT policies contain best practice guidelines for users’ safe access.” Street further emphasizes the “use of internet-facing resources, along with continual informative messaging and education.”
Moreover, Future Processing’s Head of Security, Dominik Samociuk believes that employees must be provided relevant training and technical knowledge about cybersecurity. According to Samociuk, “Cybersecurity best practices need to be run on a 24/7 basis, meaning the level of technical knowledge and skills that employees need to obtain as security specialists have never been higher. This is extremely hard to come by, and it’s all about ensuring that employees have access to the relevant training and development resources.”
Furthermore, diving deeper into the cybersecurity measures businesses can take, David Stubley, Managing Director of 7 Elements – the cybersecurity division of Redcentric, highlights key areas organizations must consider to minimize cyber risk: vulnerability management, proactive ransomware mitigation and technical assurance.
Has the Risk Increased?
The threat landscape is rapidly expanding and hackers are emerging with new ways to penetrate and find the weakest spots. In such circumstances, organizations can not lean on one sole solution. Agilitas’ Street says, “Whether they have built a solution that is protecting a network via firewalls, intelligent proxy servers or email gateways, it is important to recognize that no solution is 100% effective against the continued threat our digital world is faced with.”
Similarly, Redcentric’s Stubley considers technical assurance, such as penetration testing and security audits, as one of the best ways to operate amid increased cyber threat. According to Stubley, “With an ever evolving threat landscape, organizations can quickly become vulnerable to new forms of attack. As such, networks and exposed services should be assessed on a regular basis to ensure that any potential exposure is mitigated before it can be exploited.”
It is evident that with growing digitalization, cyber threats will only continue and grow. With increased cyber risks, businesses must be prepared to not only prevent cyber attacks, but be able to deal with them if the worst happens and they are struck by one.
Looking Ahead
Samociuk from Future Processing says, “Looking ahead, companies need to be already prepared for cybersecurity threats, and if they are only considering the potential implications now, it’s too late. They need to have a strategic plan that combines processes, the best technology, training for staff and specialist support to ensure that their business can withstand the rise in cyberattacks and that their team can keep safe from online threats in the future,”
Businesses, who look to empower their cybersecurity approach, can learn from updated security regulations. The role of accreditation schemes has become more than ever before. According to Agilitas’ Street, businesses can join best practice accreditation schemes to remain aligned with what’s going on in the industry.
Street comments, ”In order to ensure businesses are implementing the right governance and education to remain aligned with the latest security threats, they can join best practice accreditation schemes. Achieving certifications such as ISO27001 and Cyber Essentials provide businesses with the framework and processes to be more resilient when it comes to Cybersecurity as they look to protect both physical and data security needs.”
The current landscape is continuing to evolve and it is evident that the threat surface has significantly increased. Cybersecurity today is not just a factor to consider but an ongoing practice that must be imbibed within the core of every business.
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