You would have to have been actively avoiding the news to avoid any mentions of the data breaches and hacks that have been occurring in the past few years. The pandemic has changed business in a lot of ways, but one that many were not expecting was the increased prevalence of cybercrime. Here, we’re going to look at some of the stages of making your business IT more secure so that you don’t become part of this rising statistic.
Education
Before you invest in any technology, make sure that you’re investing in your team, as well. IT security awareness training for your team is vital. They have to be able to recognise a range of threats because some of the most common types will rely on them to open up vulnerabilities in the system that they use, whether it’s by leaving passwords or terminals open for others to access, or by responding to phishing scams or clicking on links and attachments that they shouldn’t.
Prevention
Prevention is the best cure, as they say. The most effective way to prevent breaches, aside from training and educating your team, is to make sure that you are equipped with the professional level security software and hardware that your business needs, such as premium up-to-date security software, physical firewalls to go with them, encryption and backup provisions, and more. You should make sure that any third party software or partners that connect to your systems are also working to the most secure standards that they can (with proof of this that they can show you.)
Detection
While prevention is the best cure, that doesn’t mean that you have no options when you do detect a threat or a breach. Anti-malware can catch most viruses, but you need to go beyond that, and that is where an XDR service can help. XDR stands for extended detection and response. It includes making sure that you are able to track where threats got in, where they are, and responding in the most secure ways, such as informing your team about threats and quarantining parts of your IT system that might currently be breached in order to stop malware and hackers getting any further through it.
Information
It’s important to make sure that you stay consistently up to date on not only the latest threats that are hitting the business world, but also the threats that are directly affecting your business. One of the best ways to do this is to carry out cyber risk assessments. These assessments can help you root out vulnerabilities and address changes you might need to make to close them or at least safeguard them as best as possible. You have to make sure that risk assessments are carried out across the entirety of your IT scope, including your digital devices, storage, remote access, and employee devices if they are connecting to your network.
The tips above should point you in the right direction to make your business more secure but it is truly up to you to keep up to the standards and to remain vigilant as time goes on.
