As businesses and organisations widen their digital online reliance, critical services and aspects of our daily lives and routines are increasingly enabled by vulnerable systems and processes.
The threat to businesses is wide and varied with exposure to cyber-attacks such as commodity malware, ransomware, viruses, social engineering and numerous other threats that continue to antagonise many businesses.
Whatever the current state of your cybersecurity plan, there are ways in which you can set up stronger defences and protection to negate these attempts and mitigate any potential damage that may arise.
Regular Cyber Security Assessments
Regular cybersecurity assessments are important in any security systems or programme and by applying a risk-managed approach, you will highlight both weaknesses and strengths within your business.
Employee Training
Over half of cyber attacks are a result of human error. Attackers exercise ways in finding a point of entry into your systems and network. Therefore you are only as strong as your least informed employee. Ensure your employees know how cyber-criminals can attack and how to spot a suspicious email or phone call.
Company Software Updates and Access Privileges
Any software used by your business should be the latest version. Old Apps are susceptible to daily attacks to penetrate networks, steal information and cause severe damage. Assess and attribute access to employees specific to the needs of their job, that way if an attack should occur they are limited to the levels in which they can infiltrate the system or network.
Incident Response Plan and Assessing Third Party Supplier Risk
As a business, you should never anticipate a 100% effectiveness on any protection or defence system you put in place. Good governance and effective leadership plan will ensure employees know what to do and when. Provide a directive on how to communicate to organisation leadership, external stakeholders and the general public where necessary.
Third-party suppliers have been the start of many large brand breaches due to vulnerabilities found in their systems. It is important to make sure your suppliers have good housekeeping in terms of their systems and how they use and protect data.
Physical Security and Hardware Theft
If your business uses mobile devices such as mobile phones and laptops ensure that they can manage your data remotely. In the best case you should be able to track and locate stolen devices and in the worst case be able to shutdown login capabilities. Ensure encryption is utilised. A plethora of information can be accessed from one lost or stolen device so, make sure you plan accordingly.
Cyber Insurance
Whilst all the above are necessary steps to protect against actual cyber threats, you must consider the impact of an attack to wreak havoc in your business. Dealing with the aftermath of a cyber attack is not cheap and you must consider whether your business could afford the following potential consequences of an attack:
- Cyber Forensic Report
- PR costs following a data breaches
- ICO penalties and fines
- Damage to software and hardware
- Ransom demands
- Business interruption due to downtime
- Loss of business and reputational damage
- Invoice Fraud / Social Engineering
Discovering a hack and removing the hacker from your system may just be the tip of the iceberg in terms of cost. It is estimated that 60% of SMEs that have witnessed an uninsured cyber attack will go out of business within six months. There are insurance solutions to cover the above costs.
The continual process of keeping your business safe from cyber threats requires understanding, awareness, diligence and effective IT strategies alongside cyber insurance and risk management.
To discuss your insurance and risk management strategies contact the Cy-Ins Works team – Jon Davies or Alex Bingle on 01625 547754
or email them directly – jonathand@riskworksbusiness.com or alexb@riskworkbusiness.com