Connect with us

Hi, what are you looking for?

Business

Why Cybersecurity is More Important than Ever

Internet constantly grows and improves and due to this fact, we can communicate with people throughout the world. Using Wi-Fi, we started to create devices, which are also connected to Internet transmitting data. It is very good, however, a reverse of the coin is about every person on the planet Earth to have networks of one`s own let alone one`s own data, which can become a theft victim.

Enhanced awareness about these sensibilities and enlightened society can make the Internet a bit safer place to be. For business, it is going to be useful to find out about such effective measures of Internet security as a hacker recruitment, phishing simulation for one`s employees and cyber insurance policies.

Here are basic rules on how to protect oneself within the existing circumstances.

1. Be careful with what you post about yourself and others

The way you talk about others online, speaks a lot about your own personality. Besides, you can buy trouble with the law or even become vulnerable to theft or break-in. people may follow what you talk about over the Internet, so if you said that you are going for vacation over a week, it would not be much of a trouble for a potential robber to find your address. Tread carefully concerning NDA violence, employment agreements and other undertakings, you signed up. Besides that, other personal information disclosure or public charges without any proofs can be a law-breaking too.

2. Understand what data your company collects and make sure they are protected

In order to keep your business-data safe, you need to perform an audit and define which is public information (and, therefore, are not to be head to toe protected), which one is of average priority (some measures of security are to be installed for them) and, finally, which data is the most important and confidential. The latter data category will affect a business strongly in case of theft, and they are to be protected the utmost with the most severe access permissions for employees and partners.

3. Use a few authentication factors

Authentification is credentialed confirmation act (whether it is a user, a computer or another device) through comparison provided credentials with an existing database of authorized users, before allowing access to a system or application. For example, input a username or a password for access to an e-mail account. However, instead of relying on passwords only, which become less and less reliable, it is recommended to use a few factors for authentification. Among these factors are some secret of a user (for example, username/password, answer to a secret question), some of its physical property (for example, digital certificate, smart card) and some biometric factor (for example, a fingerprint, facial recognition).

4. Switch HTTPS for your website on

To activate HTTPS on server certificate SSL/TLS is to install. This certificate encodes all data between browser and server, whether it is private or financial information, which is input on a web page, or page content. This is how information is protected (for example, from robbers and state chasing). SSL certificates can also link your brand to a website: it makes it to where visitors make sure that your website truly belongs to your company, but not a robber (in case of phishing website). EV SSL certificate clearly demonstrates it colouring an address bar of a browser into green and showing the name of your company.  

5. Use strong and unique passwords. 34bGUI7&89@)) is a good password. A bad password would be 12345 or Eddy1

Many «black» hackers sell data, which they managed to receive after break-in. including information about thousands, if not in millions, of users and their passwords. If you use one and the same password for each account, it will become a trivial task for a hacker to receive access to all your systems. Alternatively, a hacker can crack a password with the help of brute force. It is much more difficult than a long password composed of different symbols and does not contain words out of a dictionary. Use some password messenger in order not to forget unique passwords for each service. 

6. Update all the software

Hackers are always in search of new soft spots in software, which your business uses. It happens to be as easy to find them as find a way in your Windows network. At the same time, software companies themselves work hard over patch output for improvement of these soft spots, so it is very important to update software as soon as new update coming out.

7. Make backup copies of all data

Backup copies guarantee that in case of data loss files are to be restored. Always keep data in different places, physically spread, so hackers could not get an access to all at once. Update backup copies regularly too.

8. Install a firewall on the gateway on the Internet

Firewalls were created to prevent non-authorized access into the net. You can set up a set of rules to define which traffic is allowed and which one is forbidden. A good firewall should follow both incoming and outcoming traffic.  

Safety culture while at work 

9. Make rules for using own devices at a job

Some companies allow employees to use private mobile devices for work. It raises productivity and efficiency, but opens opportunities for an attack, as long as these smartphones may be broken and used for access into your corporative network. Bring Your Own Device rules may enlighten employees concerning usage of mobile technologies and how to decrease a risk of such an attack.

10. Create an incident response strategy

Incident response strategy may help to get prepared for an attack in advance. 100 per cent safety is never guaranteed, which is why it is better to have a plan B for this case if you become a victim of a cyber-attack.  It guarantees that you can react fast enough, and robbers will not manage to get confidential data. You will manage to warn press or clients if such an attack turns out to be stronger than expected. Also, make sure that there is a designated person for the implementation of a response plan.

11. Training of staff how to handle passwords

All the employees are to be trained in how to work with passwords. Including:

  • Do not write a password down on a piece of paper (it may be stolen).
  • Do not pass a password through online channels of communication, if they are not encoded.
  • Use strong passwords and corporate password messenger.
  • Do not use one and the same password many times for different applications of the company or for personal advantage.

12. Make sure that employees check if there letter S in HTTPS while searching in the Internet

From time to time employees will use corporate IT-net for visiting websites and registration in services for personal advantage or corporate usage. Before passing any information, they always have to check if there is HTTPS sign-in address bar of a browser. If a website is not protected, no information is to transfer.

Note: it is important to tell employees about phishing websites. There were cases when robbers used Domain Validated (DV) SSL certificates, so their websites looked more real and reliable.

13. Use safe utilities via e-mail and train on the risk of phishing attacks

E-mail is still a weak spot in cybersecurity and two of the main danger are break-in and phishing. A solution for e-mail protection is to look for, which would be able to encode messages on their way to a storage, with an opportunity to check a message origin, so it became a trivial task for an employee to define fake letters and not to become a phishing victim. Ease of use for end customers is another important factor to consider.

14. Executive managers should spread cybersecurity culture

Principal officers are the first ones who are to accept these changes in all corporate strategies.

15. Simulation of phishing to keep employee sharp while playing for fun

Organize tests on phishing simulation in order to check how ready employees are. Tests are to be conducted before and after training on phishing attacks risk in order to measure an effect of these training.  

Cybercrime opponency

16. Creation of rapid action team

Although, there always has to be a person in charge, responsible for following a plan, a team to help this person is required. For example, PR expert to publish press releases and communication with the press and a representative of the sales department for communication with clients. In accordance with your organization sizes and perhaps a size of an attack, make sure right people fit in a team.

17. Undertake the analysis of insider danger

Insider danger analysis will show potential threats to your IT-infrastructure, which start from the inside of an organization. Anyone can provide with a threat: from today`s and former co-workers to contractors, vendors, outside data suppliers and partners.

18. Make an instruction on fast response

Make sure you are ready to respond fast and effectively in case of a cyber-attack. Send a plan to employees of the company and placed in charge of its implementation.  

19. Shape a plan for external communications

GDPR European regulations require you to inform a responsible supervisory authority as soon as you find out about a break-in. The supervisory authority should be in every country, more than likely represents a state organization. Also, you need to plan communications to whom it may concern including clients, contractors and employees.

20. Inform employees about a response plan

Knowing of a plan and possible types of attacks will help employees to remember about their duties and to keep confidentiality and minimize the risk of data leak.

21. Draw conclusions of previous mistakes

After break-in and running events on incident response, when all the consequences are removed and you can come back to a normal work audit is to be performed. Within the framework of the activity, an active incident response plan can be discussed and decided whether to make changes based on mistakes made for the first time. Perhaps, you will need to contact IT-department for making a change in procedures and communications, so those very soft spots were not exploited again.  

22. Read into the contract — you are never 100 per cent safe from soft spots

The fact that there were much money and time spent on information security strategy, does not guarantee your system protection. There will always be a soft spot, which is to be applied within your net, or a new employee through whom a break-in can be done. There is always a chance for a hacker to break in.

Internet security future, strategies for protection and privacy

23. Insurance for IT-infrastructure

Typical insurance policies usually do not cover data loss; this is where insurance policies take place. Also, make sure that insurance covers damage due to downtime. Besides that, you can bear losses due to storage of data, which does not belong to you or expenses for the accomplishment of standard procedures and break-in notifications.

24. «Every item» (devices, sensors, systems and others.) should receive an indicator

As changes occur and faster, more effective and productive systems of the company appear and combine many devices and sensors in the shared network, which share data, this all is called Infrastructure of the Internet of things (IoT). Within the frame of this infrastructure, each «item» requires an indicator. With the help of a strong unique identification, they will be able to authenticate connecting to the net and guarantee safe and encoded connection with other devices, services and users.

25. Make sure that all the systems are available through STRONG authentication

Both provide with access to important data only after «strong» if you work in a bank for some time, in order to access a cash box you are going to need to authenticate in a few places at the same time, same rules work for online. You just have to take into account an access based on roles and access to critical systems only to the certain privileged user.

26. Hire a hacker

There is a huge number of hackers in the world who are not going to break the law, steal your data and sell it online. They want to help the world. These hackers are called «white» hackers, and each organization should have such one in order to stand against «black» hackers. As they say, blunt wedges rive hard knots.

27. Adopt flow control immediately

As technologies are improved, our data becomes more and more complicated. In order to keep data under control and avoid a leakage, one should know how it moves along organization and from a source to an endpoint or a user.

28. Use a cloud

Cloud services are important tools especially for small and middle companies, which want to give their data under the protection of a big company. During cloud provider registering, it is essential to make sure that you know everything about it, where data centres are located, where specifically your data is stored and how to get an access.

Improving the stability of critical systems

29. Make sure that your net is segmented so access will not give an access to another

Not all of your corporative IT-network should be accessible from one point even if there is a «strong» authentication. If you segment networks, a hacker will be unable to control them all, getting an access to one only. One should segment systems on importance or how important a network is for business.  Install the strongest security in the most critical networks.

30. Stay above a target of your area

There is already a set of standards and best practices in most branches, which are to follow for basic cybersecurity implementation. There is a framework for energy industry called NIST Cybersecurity Framework, a framework of the best practices of auto cybersecurity for the auto industry, PCI DSS for payment cards industry. It is important to stay above any new standards and guarantee that you will deal with no fine.

31. Keep on learning new technologies and vendors

A finishing tip would be in order to be familiar with the latest best practices of security, operators, vendors and technologies, be ready to update your software, to use new tools and technologies in order to provide your infrastructure with security online.

Hopefully, these tips helped to understand all the importance of a business security. Just know that danger may and most likely be going from the outside of a company.  Always be ready for an attack to happen.


Melisa Marzett works for Pen Essays Custom Writing Service. She writes all kinds of articles taking enjoyment in it let alone cooking, jogging in the morning, watching romantic comedies and horror movies (she is a person of moods), taking yoga and Russian language classes. Also, she is interested in psychology and meditation but she did not start meditating yet. She dreams of writing a book (she won`t tell you what about, don`t even try to figure it out) and to make a journey around the world. 

Written By

Melisa Marzett is a prominent writer, who knows everything about modern technologies. Read her posts written for Big Paper Writers and get the latest news!

1 Comment

1 Comment

  1. Adrian Crisostomo

    November 7, 2018 at 3:57 am

    Great article! This is a topic that is much needed with our world being more digital than ever. Cyber crime is more of a threat these days compared to real world crimes. Our personal information are being passed around online. The more we surf, the more people know about us and people are making profit out of this. We must be really careful with what we click online.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

You May Also Like

Tech

Cybercrime is a serious and growing threat in 2024. Ever since the pandemic, cyber-attacks have been on the rise, and criminals have been using...

Web

In today’s data-driven world, the potential benefits of artificial intelligence (AI) are vast and varied. However, as AI becomes more prevalent, so does the...

Blogging

Telework has been a popular trend in business for a while. However, it has seen unprecedented growth since the Coronavirus crisis.

Featured

Companies do a lot to grow their businesses. Preventing cyberattacks and data theft is one of those things. Irrespective of the size of a...