According to one figure, a cyberattack occurs every 39 seconds.
Between worrying statistics like these and headline-grabbing cyberattacks against global brands, you may feel like there is nothing you can do to mitigate your own cybersecurity risks. Fortunately, you are not alone and there are plenty of best practices and tools out there to help drastically improve your business’s cyber-attack prevention measures.
A good cybersecurity program strikes a balance between securing the systems and tools that their businesses rely on and allow staff to work effectively without being hindered by security measures. An important step toward finding this sweet spot is implementing a cybersecurity program rooted in key best practices and modern security tools.
To help your organization get a jump start on your cyberattack prevention efforts, here are four key ways to safeguard your business.
1. Provide Regular Security Awareness Training
According to IBM, 30 percent of cyberattacks involve insiders, which include employees and others with internal access to an organization’s systems.
Comprehensive and regularly reinforced security awareness training gets both employees and cybersecurity professionals on the same page when it comes to their roles in maintaining organizational security. Security awareness training also helps organizational leaders better understand the importance of IT governance, how to handle incidents when they do happen, and how to respond to customers’ concerns about privacy and security. Most importantly, security awareness training can help stop an incident from happening in the first place or reduce its impact if one occurs.
2. Implement Security Tools
Cybercriminals are usually looking for the path of least resistance. To thwart their attacks and frustrate their efforts, utilize common security tools such as anti-virus and anti-spam technology to block suspicious activity and help alert your staff to unusual software.
There are also more advanced tools, such as data loss prevention solutions, that monitor your outbound network traffic for potentially sensitive data that could be leaving your organization. A solution like this can help prevent an accidental or malicious data breach while allowing users with a legitimate need to continue their work.
3. Increase Network Perimeter Defenses
As more work is done remotely and business is increasingly conducted on a global scale, there are plenty of best practices to follow when it comes to securing your edge network devices such as web, email, and file sharing servers.
First, ensure that all unnecessary ports and services are turned off and closed, preventing nosy cybercriminals from finding a unique way in. Second, utilize a modern firewall with enough processing power to monitor traffic flow without slowing down your staff or preventing your customers from accessing needed services. And, finally, consider implementing a network detection and response system, which monitors network traffic for unusual behavior that could otherwise slip through the firewall.
4. Establish and Maintain a Patch Management Program
Despite what you may think, not all cybercriminals are experts in attacking computer systems or network devices. Most security breaches follow trends where software and hardware manufacturers share known vulnerabilities or bugs in their products and push out updates or patches to repair them. Just like system administrators and cybersecurity staff follow these updates, cybercriminals do, too, and then use them—along with pre-packaged exploits from others in the open web—to find vulnerable systems.
The best way to protect your technology enterprise against these common threats is to create and maintain a vulnerability detection and patch management program. This is an extremely effective way of identifying weaknesses in operating systems and software and staying one step ahead of the bad guys. These tools help your organization identify the latest patches while maintaining compliance.
Bringing It All Together
Cyberthreats are constantly evolving, but so too, are the tools and techniques available to help your organization fight back.
This may seem overwhelming, but implementing a sound cyber-attack prevention program does not have to be. You can have an experienced partner like Axians in your corner to evaluate, implement, and continuously improve your security posture to prepare for the threats of today and tomorrow.
To learn more about how our team can help, contact us here.