Technology is swiftly progressing and becoming more integrated into our daily lives to make daily communications and tasks easier. However with an increase in advanced software and hardware in our homes and lives, so too comes an increase in cybersecurity threats. These cybersecurity threats bring harm to businesses and individuals all across the country and the globe.
Although it may seem trivial, and you may think that you will not be affected, it’s important not to take these threats lightly because of the amount of data that businesses hold. All businesses today collect, process and hold sensitive customer information that should be protected at all costs. The only way to ensure that it is protected is to create an effective and strong cybersecurity plan.
What is a Cybersecurity Plan?
A cybersecurity plan is a written document that outlines a company’s security policies, procedures and strategic approach to prioritising threats. The key elements of a good cybersecurity plan include risk management, ransomware defence and readiness, incident response (IR) capabilities and external penetration testing.
Having a cybersecurity plan is key to reducing the risk associated with losing personal data, clients’ trust, clients and income. It is also important to ensure that personal information falls into the wrong hands. This is where reliable cybersecurity companies step in, as they can help businesses and individuals create a cybersecurity plan.
To get you started, here are a few steps you can take to begin developing a successful cybersecurity plan.
Identify Risks in Your Network
The first step is identifying and understanding the risks you are vulnerable to to know what needs to be done. Prioritising your tasks from the start ensures that you deal with the most time-sensitive tasks first before working your way through them. One way to do this is to undertake a cybersecurity review – an external company usually does this so you can obtain an independent assessment of your current setup.
Implement Cybersecurity Training
Whether you operate as a sole trader, small business or multi-national organisation, the employees of every company need to be able to recognise and mitigate cybersecurity risks. Ensuring that your team is trained and equipped is an important step towards implementing a successful cybersecurity plan. This can be achieved by adding security tips to new staff orientation and regularly having security training or drop-in working lunch sessions for all staff members.
Secure Data Access
It is easy to assume that all employees or members of a team need access to important and sensitive information, however, this is not true. Allowing every single employee or team member to access sensitive data can lead to your demise. One of the easiest ways to keep data secure is to only allow certain people, certain access. This means reviewing all roles and only providing access to appropriate data. If someone only needs to use the data once, they most likely do not need full access to it all the time, the data can be given to them by the dedicated staff. Limited access to data sources and storage is a simple yet effective way to protect it, and in the case of a data breach, it is easier to trace where the breach came from.
So when it comes to data access, treat it as a need-to-know, or need-to-access basis and keep things protected. This is how cybersecurity companies work and is a crucial part of a successful cybersecurity plan.
Improve Malware Detection
Gone are the days when companies could install antivirus software and assume that they would be protected against all types of cyber attacks. With the development and advancement of technology, cybercriminals are also developing the malware and approach they use. There are now viruses that can bypass basic antivirus software and find a way into your network to steal your data so because of this, your threat detection needs to level up.
One way to do this is through the constant monitoring and analysis of all information coming in and out of your network and servers. This can be done by installing specific antivirus programs to run in the background so they can prevent malware from installing onto your network. Established cybersecurity companies can help you with the installation of anti-malware software, and if you need it, they can also monitor it and alert you when any risks arise. The benefit of working with a cyber security company is that you don’t need to worry about any of it because by the time the threat has been detected, your cybersecurity support team will have already stopped and mitigated it.
A well-thought-out cybersecurity plan is beneficial to all businesses and taking the time to create one and implement it will ensure that you are better prepared against online threats.
The best place to start is to undertake a cybersecurity review – which we can assist with. Click here to find out more.
