Confronting The Major Security Risk Your Business May Face [PPT]

’Take Security Seriously. Keep Your Data Safe’

This is the need of the hour for any online activity today. Cybersecurity is no more related to IT department of a company. It is a major concern for business and its continuity.

As cyber hackers are making sophisticated agendas like the market manipulation, espionage, infrastructure disruption, and, etc., businesses have to act in terms of security. Cybersecurity has to be thought and dealt in terms of business and its customers.

Here is a note on how a company can protect itself successfully by confronting the major risks it would face.

Cybersecurity is an issue affecting most of the companies today across the globe.

With cyber attacks hitting the headlines a day after the other, businesses from varied industrial segments irrespective of the size are concerned about their cybersecurity.

“Organizations with any strategically useful information, whether in the public or the private sector, must prepare themselves to deal with highly sophisticated phishing, infiltration, and data leaking campaigns,” says Adam Vincent, CEO of the cybersecurity company ThreatConnect, who was quoted by CSO.com in January 2017.

Tightening up the security in order to protect against the internal/external threats has become a compulsion.

Internal Cyber Threats:

These threats originate from business within. The threats may come from business partners, employees, contractors, and/or the compromised internal accounts.

The concerned personnel may get involved in these activities for want of financial profit, personal gain, professional revenge, or get influenced by an outside influencer.

External Cyber Threats:

These include cybercriminals, hacktivists, competition or nation sponsored attackers who intrude in the business pathway.

The concerned personnel may get involved in these activities for want of economic gain, sponsored espionage, political, military, or social advantage.

The Targets of Cyber Attack:

The likely targets of either internal or the external attacks include

• Intellectual Property
• Trade Secrets
• Business Plans
• Corporate Secrets
• Products Information
• R&D Information
• Source Code
• Personal Information
• Financial Information
• Critical Infrastructure
• Employee/Customer data
• And more.

The PwC Global Economic Crime Report confirms that Cybercrime climbs to 2nd most reported economic crime affecting 31% of organizations.

The most common methods of attack influenced by these internal/external attacks include:

Social engineering, denial of services, web-based attacks, phishing, malicious insiders, malicious code, stolen devices, malware, botnet, viruses, worms, trojan, and, etc.

It’s high time that the businesses consider cyber security as of prime importance and need to incorporate right measures against attacks.

Security Priorities of Industries:

In general irrespective of industrial verticals, they include the following:

• Governance, Compliance, and Organization
• Data Protection
• Security Risk Management
• Identity and Access Management
• Incident Response
• Third-Party/Vendor Management
• Host and Endpoint Protection
• Application, Database, and Mobile Protection
• Network, Cloud, and Data Center Protection
• Security Awareness and Training

Confronting The Major Cyber Security Risk in Your Business:

An effort in the interest of tuning up the security with extra tactics has been done here.

1. Implementation of Cyber Security Basics:

It is understood that the cyber attackers exploited the vulnerabilities to hack into the organization’s systems. As the survey report of the affected organizations, it is studied that a timely patching and data encryption would have blocked about 78% of the internal/external vulnerabilities.

2. Monitoring the Source of Attack:

Many times, the companies may fail to understand the exact source of an attack, vulnerabilities, and the values of assets they have.

The key components identified in the cyber value-at-risk model includes

• Existing vulnerabilities
• Organization’s defense maturity
• Value of the assets
• Profile of an attacker
  

It is highly essential for the organizations’ to assess their risks and plan mitigation as a long-term benefit.

3. Implement Cybersecurity Policies:

The cyber threats are not confined to financial sector alone. Every company is a target if not today, but tomorrow. In order to thrive in the industry, it is necessary to administer security standards.

The companies are targeted because of fewer layers of protection, less in-house IT expertise, lower levels of awareness and/or the fewer cybersecurity policies.

The policy elements in general includes as follows:

• All employees must oblige to protect the confidential data and provided with instructions to avoid security breaches.
• All employees must keep both their personal and company-issued computer, tablet and cell phone secure as instructed.
• As emails host the scams and malicious software, the employees must be instructed to follow the rules led to avoid data theft or infections.
• Password leakages may compromise the whole infrastructure. Hence it is necessary to keep the password strong.
• Avoid sharing of data over public wifi, transfer of sensitive data, and report to the concerned authority for any data breaches.

4. Keep an eye on Human Factor:

"Requests for social engineering audits have increased," said Stuart Chontos-Gilchrist, CEO of E3 Technology, an IT security audit firm. "Companies are recognizing that it is people, more often than machines, who generate security breaches."

The 2018 DBIR [Database Investigations Report] is based on 53,000 incidents and 2,220+ confirmed data breaches due to malware, DoS attacks, social engineering, and other activities.

It is found that the human factor plays an important role in company’s information security defenses and lower-level employees may weaken the security to a considerable extent.

5. Bring Your Own Device [BYOD] Policy:

BYOD is observed as a common strategy in most of the enterprises. Though it is beneficial in cost-cutting, time-saving, and providing flexibility for employees on the field, the security concerns with respect to device usage include leakage of data, malware, download of unsafe content or the apps, unauthorized access, and, etc.

The BYOD & Mobile Security 2016 study states that one in five organizations suffered a mobile security breach, primarily driven by malware and malicious WiFi. And, security threats to BYOD impose heavy burdens on organizations’ IT resources (35 percent) and help desk workloads (27 percent).

In case of mobile devices, password protection is still the go-to solution. And, encryption is most favored as the top 3 security measures.

6. Information Security Training:

Employee training is critical when it comes to information security. The current and new employees must be trained in security compulsorily, which would be beneficial at individual and organization level.

It is suggested that understanding the penetrators’ criteria on file systems, would help to take an actionable advice on employees’ training.

Cybersecurity Ventures predicts the security awareness training market will grow from $1 billion in 2014 to $10 billion by 2027. Numerous vendors are helping the vendors with training programs in the security awareness market.

Creating a culture of security-aware employees would have a larger security network for a company resulting in active participants endorsing security, accountability, and involvement in recovery plan in case of disaster[s].

7. Meet the Evolving Risks:

Polymorphic malware is harmful, destructive or intrusive. As the name itself suggests it is able to change constantly and thus makes the anti-malware program fail to detect it.

Moreover, cyber risks are increasing day by day and becoming more aggressive and extreme. The company must be able to address these evolving risks with stringent measures and tactics line network segment shutdown, disconnecting computers, and, etc.

Wrapping Up:

To conclude, it is understood there is a need for time to strengthen the company’s defenses against the security risks.

Still, the process helps the organization to reach new heights. An investment in proactive cybersecurity approach would be worth it.

Some of the benefits of adopting the cybersecurity measures include:

• Mitigate risks beforehand
• Comply with the regulations and policies
• Strengthen the customers’ trust
• Build trust with investors, shareholders and etc.

In a nutshell, awareness about the possible cybersecurity risks, well-planned infrastructure, well-trained employees, would definitely help you to confront the security issues successfully.

The Next Step:

In order to

Look for security solutions from Data in Transit to Data at Rest namely, Identity Management, Endpoint Security, Data Security, Application Security, Secure Your Email, web, Compliance & Control Management, Manage Unified Threat, Incident Management, Secure Configuration, System Security, Infrastructure, and, etc.

Address the Prevailing and Predictive issues namely, IoT Security, GDPR, Cloud Security, Security Literacy, Critical Infrastructure, Password Death, Official Cyberwar, Questions on Board, and, etc.

And look forward to Cyber Security Resilience, Smarter Security, Security Protocol, Research Promotion, Use Blockchain, Rethink Security, Cyber Hygiene, White-hat hacker, Hiked Salary Key Positions, and, etc.,

It’s high time to consider IT Certifications.

If you consider training for the employees, there are several IT certifications regarding cybersecurity. To mention a few here, they include:

• EC-Council Courses:
  CSCU; CEH; ECSA and More
• CompTIACourses:
  CompTIA Security+, CASP
  
• [ISC] 2Courses:
  CISSP, CCSP, CSSLP
  
• ISACA Courses:
  CISA, CRISC, CISM
  
• CISCO Courses:
  CCNA Security, CCNP Security

‘Take Security Seriously. Keep Your Data Safe’

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