Cyber attacks have victims across various industries like governments, hospitality, banking and so on.  In 2015, CIA director John Brennan’s AOL email account was hacked by a teenager. If this is the case, then how safe are others? Enterprises have been struggling to get ready to counter cyber attacks, but their efforts aren’t sufficient. We have seen that cybersecurity readiness isn’t just having a firewall or an antivirus program. Countering cybersecurity is everyone’s responsibility, so cybersecurity strengthening should be done from both enterprise management as well as workforce end.  

Getting Management Ready For Cybersecurity Challenges

In the urge to globalize businesses, enterprises realized the digital transformation as the key and started investing heavily in digital infrastructure. Though this benefited enterprise to score more profits, but faced heavy losses due to lack of a well-designed approach to secure digital assets from cyber attacks. The enterprise cybersecurity losses around the globe is estimated to be $400 billion a year and the cybersecurity expenditure is expected to reach $1 Trillion by 2021.

The enterprises have no precise clue of where an attack could happen and moreover, some companies are taking months even to realize if they were under attack. One such is, the recent cyber attack on Deloitte went unnoticed for months, which revealed its top client’s communication emails and passwords. Enterprises are sweating to get cyber threat intelligence (CTI) to detect, predict and to defend from happening of cyber threats. To assist enterprises to counter attacks in advance and to develop a robust cybersecurity road map, here is the not to miss checklist:

1. Analyze the cybersecurity trends to keep your enterprise security policies updated.
2. Keep conducting mock cyber attacks also know as PEN testing (penetration testing) to check the employee response to cyber attacks or to test the awareness gained from training sessions. (Facebook’s security teams do send phishing emails to check the response of the employees to cyber attacks).
3. Keep cybersecurity insurance up-to-date.
4. Develop industry current cybersecurity and information security policies.
5. Audit all the business processes on regular basis to identify the significant risk areas. Also keep the emergency response plan ready to handle any sudden risk incidents.
6. Only allow secure remote access to data for users.
7. Employee training on best security practices is required.
8. Run a vulnerability assessment program on frequent basis to detect any security defects in the network or IT infrastructure.

Getting Employees Ready for Cybersecurity Challenges

It is observed that more than 30 percent of cybersecurity attacks root cause are the result of a human error. Forrester research suggests that 70 percent of breaches are due to lack of cybersecurity awareness by employees. For example, consider a browser plug-in or add-ons you download; they can collect your info, and pass it on to the attackers. Something as innocuous as an email appearing to be from your boss, prompting to click some link, can pave the path to attackers. The recent Wanna Cry Ransomware attack is one such (phishing) attack, where an email link opened caused such massive losses across for enterprises.

The result is drastic rise in the costs for enterprises in terms of business data, finance, reputation and loss of customer trust. Preparing employees for a cyber attack is the first line of defense. To make employees cybersecurity soldiers in protecting your business systems, ensure your employees:

1. Follow password best practices. (Complex with capitals, characters, and numbers)
2. Never click on a link or attachment in an email from an unknown source or from someone you did not expect to receive the email from.
3. Ensure anti-virus, malware, and firewall software’s up-to-date. 
4. For mobile devices keep track of them and use biometric authorization
5. Never email sensitive files to your personal email. Best to access remotely when needed through a secure connection. 
6. Use up-to-date security practices and anti-virus and browsing security software at home and for personal devices. 
7. Do not browse on sites that force the sharing of information or are of a non-professional nature because just visiting can open you up to hackers.

Conclusion

Hackers are everywhere, so are the cyberattacks! You are Being Hacked!  You need to Protect Your Business. So, work towards prevention than going for a cure. Want to know how ready is your enterprise, here is a free assessment from our experts: