With Cyber Security, It’s Not If but When!

Cyber Security is On the Rise and Every Business is a Target

So, who in your business should have responsibility for its Cyber Security within a small or medium sized business?

If you have an IT expert within your organisation or outsourced IT provider, they can certainly play a large part, but if everyone in your organisation doesn’t play their part, you’re leaving your organisation open to cyber threats.

1. Human Firewall

It’s often cited that employees are the weakest link in an organisation’s Cyber Security. However, we should see them as a highly adaptable first line of defence.

Providing Security Awareness Training (SAT) increases employee knowledge and creates a culture that encourages them to get involved with security measures which might otherwise be seen as an inconvenience.

Training is a major prevention of Phishing, which is one of the most common means of a criminal gaining access to a business network. Unfortunately, it’s a topic that sometimes leaves people with a mix of anxiety and boredom. It’s spoken about enough that they fatigued by it, but the advice is never specific enough to remove their concerns.

Regular training and simulated attacks help to make your team aware and vigilant to potential threats.

2. Continuous Security

There is no single event or award ceremony when your organisation is cyber secure. As with all aspects of technology, Cyber Security threats are constantly evolving and so should your protection. Whether it’s new malware that seeks out vulnerabilities or cyber criminals gaining access to your system.

Your organisation needs the most advanced tools in place to protect it, including:

• Threat Detection & Response
• Network & Email Security
• Security Awareness Training

3. Update Systems Regularly

This should be done continuously to ensure the latest software versions and patches are in place to help systems become as airtight as possible.

Automating your Monitoring and Patching ensures that your systems and devices are up-to-date and protected against the latest malware and viruses.

Keeping the operating systems on your devices is also critical, Windows 10 will become End of Life in October 2025 and any devices running it will no longer receive security updates, leaving them vulnerable.

4. Plan and Respond

Your organisation should have a plan for when things go wrong.

Who will take the lead on responding to the attack? How can the problem be solved? Who needs to be informed? What can be learnt and done to prevent similar attacks in the future?

Having access to a Rapid Response will provide you with access to experts who will follow the following 5 steps:

1. Identify
2. Contain
3. Remove
4. Recover
5. Report

Find out more about Rapid Response Teams.

Summary

Cyber Security affects every business, of every size and in every industry. It should be seen as everyone’s responsibility within your organisation and following the process:

• Raise awareness with your employees
• Ensure you have Cyber Security protection
• Update your systems regularly
• Have a plan if the worst happens

If your organisation doesn’t have the expertise or resource to implement and manage these processes it should look to outsource its Cyber Security to a Managed Service Provider, such as Technical Drive. Find out more about Cyber Security solutions.