Tons of companies burn themselves because they don’t realize how essential it is to invest in proactive measures that will keep cyber criminals at bay. They only comprehend its importance after the damage was done and their systems were already compromised.
A cyber security incident can take a major toll on your company, sometimes even causing you to go out of business. A full 41% of unprepared and reactive companies never do recover from a major cyber incident. While reactive measures, the ones taken after a breach, don’t cost that much, they also leave your organization exposed to major risks. Proactive security measures have long term benefits that are worth it.
Is that a risk worth taking for your company?
4 Steps to Start a Proactive Security Plan for Your Company
1. Create a list of the major cyber security incidents that occur most often in your Industry
These are usually caused by a mix of:
- Uneducated employees
- Social engineering
- Outdated software
2. Put together a data assessment list
- What is your most valuable data?
- Who has access to this information?
- Do you have multiple backups in multiple locations?
3. Test the security system you already have in place. Imagine all possible scenarios.
- What does each employee have access to?
- What kind of security education do they have?
4. Do a costs and benefits analysis. Determine what cyber security measures are affordable and practical.
Can split into two major categories:
- People education
- Tech (software/hardware)
5. Ask for help
- If you have it in your budget, you can hire security professionals that can help you discover vulnerabilities.
- Your insurance agent and/or insurance company should have additional resources to help you.
Cyber Security Challenges Based on Business Size
Small and Medium Businesses
- Don’t consider proactive cyber security to be important, so they put off setting up any measure.
- They imagine it’s expensive and they don’t allocate a budget for it. They focus on other things that they consider to be more important for the business to survive.
- They only pay attention to cyber security after something bad happens.
- They don’t really know what to do and are reluctant to call for a professional’s help.
Large Businesses
- They are usually too big to be properly controlled. Even though they are educating their employees and have security systems set up in place, it only takes one employee to affect the whole company.
- If something bad happens, they are reluctant to report the problems or inform the authorities. They consider that it would damage their reputation (although more people would benefit from reporting and it’s impossible to hide the dirt under the carpet for too long anyway).
Proactive Cyber Security Measures that Your Company Should Take Include:
People Education
1. Employee Training
- Start investing part of your budget towards educating the employees. A cyber security education will prevent most hacks.
2. Office Policy Regarding Access to Information
- Employee access to information should be layered. The higher their role and responsibilities in the organization, the higher the access to data
- Be careful with the information they can access on a smartphone device. It’s much harder to spot a phishing page on a mobile device.
3. Former Employee Policies
- Make sure you have a confidentiality agreement in place that everybody signs when they join the team.
- For every employee make sure you create a checklist with the accounts they have access to and what kind of data is on those accounts.
Tech (Software/Hardware)
1. Data Backup
- It’s essential to have backups in multiple locations to prevent data from being encrypted, corrupted, or leaked online.
2. URL Filtering Tech
- This is a type of software that will keep employees from accessing potentially dangerous websites by blocking any web pages that are blacklisted or infected to prevent damage.
3. Patching & Updates
- It’s essential to conduct updates quickly in order for cyber criminals not to exploit them. Outdated browsers or plugins are critical vulnerabilities in your system.
4. Antivirus
- It’s crucial to implement an antivirus program, which aims to detect and delete any type of malware from a computer.
5. Insurance
- Review your insurance coverages with your management team as well as your agent; It will be critical to have the proper coverage in place should you need it.
Contact us for additional information on proactive cyber security practices.
