Cybersecurity has emerged as an important aspect of business survival and success. Businesses must prioritise their defensive strategy because cyber-attacks have put all businesses at danger, no matter how big or small a business is.
Businesses must be aware and alert as the threat environment changes in order to successfully fight against possible attacks. We talked with Babble, one of the several IT support London companies that have helped other businesses strengthen their cybersecurity stance, about this problem. Their advice helped us outline cybersecurity dangers, recommended practices, and ways to counter them.
Understanding Cybersecurity Threats
Businesses should be fully aware of the threats and risks to which they may be exposed to, in order to take the appropriate precautions. Here are some of the most common cybersecurity risks that businesses face:
- Malware: The term “malware” (malicious + software) refers to any kind of software that was created with malicious intent. These include ransomware, trojans, keyloggers, viruses, and worms.
- Phishing Attacks: Social engineering is a common tactic used by criminal hackers to fool customers into sharing private information, accessing websites, or downloading information-stealing malware.
- DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) Attacks: Web traffic is used in this kind of assault to overload systems, resulting in their failure and giving ill-intentioned hackers access to the system.
- Insider Threats: This is any behaviour occurring within a business that has the potential to compromise security. This covers anything from inadvertent user mistake to deliberate data leakage.
- Advanced Persistent Threats (APTs): This occurs when a malicious hacker gains continuous, covert access to a system.
Assessing Your Business’s Cybersecurity
Evaluating the present cybersecurity stance of your business is a very important step towards strengthening it. We asked the managed IT services London company Babble about what steps a business might take to determine its cybersecurity stance, and this is what they mentioned:
- Identifying Critical Assets and Data: A business must first identify the resources and information it possesses that might be of interest to hackers. Every business has financial data, intellectual property, PPI for customers and employees, etc.
- Identifying Cyber Threats: Additionally, businesses should be well-informed about the range of dangers to which businesses are exposed to.
- Identify Vulnerabilities: Businesses should be aware of the vulnerabilities specific to their infrastructure in addition to the generic cyber risks.
- Analyse Existing Controls: Evaluate the effectiveness of the controls your business already has in place by contrasting them with the suggested new controls.
- Assess Likelihood of Risks: A business should prioritise activities by running scenarios to determine the likelihood of each risk after they have a good understanding of the risks to which they are exposed.
Building a Strong Cybersecurity Framework
After a cybersecurity assessment, it will be much easier to determine what the business needs in order to create a proper cybersecurity framework that suits the business. The following should be a part of any strong cybersecurity framework:
- Implementing Strong Password Policies: Account security may be improved by establishing rules for strong passwords, such as minimum length and character complexity.
- Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA): In addition to using strong passwords, implementing MFA gives accounts an additional degree of security.
- Software Patches and Updates: Babble, who offer Microsoft 365 consultants, noted that SaaS programs like M365 allow for automatic patching and upgrades.
- Data Backups and Disaster Recovery: It will be more difficult to lose a significant amount of data in a breach if a business can back-up its data more often.
- Network Security: Examples of these are Intrusion Detection and Prevention (IDP) systems and firewalls.
Maintaining Cybersecurity in an Evolving Landscape
There is no doubt that knowledge is the key to remaining successful in this ever-changing field of cybersecurity. Ill-intentioned hackers are always finding and developing new ways to steal from businesses, so it is crucial that businesses always remain on guard.
Using developing technologies can provide defenders a major edge in strengthening cybersecurity defences in the never-ending game of cat and mouse between cyber attackers and defenders. Big Data analytics, Machine Learning (ML), and Artificial Intelligence (AI) have all become effective weapons in the battle against online threats.
