3 ways to integrate cyber resilience into your business team
With more cyber threats around the corner, businesses need to find and implement better cyber security practices, considering that, in the UK, 18% of companies have experienced a cyber breach at least once a month in the last year. This is quite concerning as businesses don’t consider cyber security a top priority and lack employee training. At the same time, they don’t invest in better software and don’t make enough audits.
We can see that many of them (of which are enormous corporations) have ignored cyber security since they have experienced preposterous data breaches that led to many of their customers’ data being stolen or leaving them with massive debts and lawsuits. Yahoo was one of them, and, believe it or not, the incident has affected three billion accounts. Since the company failed to react at the moment and disclose another disastrous incident to its users, it was fined $35 million.
In the end, whatever the size of your business is, you must consider cyber security important and spread the information among your employees, so here’s how to build cyber resilience into your team.
Spread awareness
More than anything, it’s crucial that you, as a manager, create a cybersecurity culture and spread it around the company. At the same time, finding people who are as interested in technologies as you are is a top priority regarding hiring new people because it’s not easy to work your way through building such a culture on your own. At the same time, as other companies will learn the way you make business, you’ll be able to collaborate with proper supply chains and contractors.
Here are some ideas on how to find such values:
Allocate more time in your schedule with your team for security discussions to have a casual conversation about the latest changes in cybersecurity and what improvements you can make towards this goal;
Provide frequent training for board members for them to become more cyber aware;
Create specific plans for effective collaborations with new and old contractors;
Establish some performance measures that you can get aligned with as a business (you can start with the CISO responsibilities);
Invest in software solutions
After you provide the knowledge, it’s time to make a change in your business investments and choose better software solutions for you and your employees because, according to Norton, the average cost of a ransomware attack is about €1,85 million. Keep in mind that most cybercrimes are motivated financially, meaning they’ll either want to threaten you for money or they will steal your customer’s information, which is highly valuable. The software can protect you against hackers, malware, ransomware and guard sensitive data.
There are plenty of options on the market, so make sure you choose a trustworthy software security business that can provide the best solution for your company. At the same time, use a licenced version you can find on 2gosoftware. Look for packs that are available with the computers you’re using, and considering how many of them are in your office, some software packs can be used for more devices at a fair price.
Perform a risk analysis
The best way to have a proper security plan is to make a risk analysis based on a BIA (Business Impact Analysis), through which you can identify any internal and external cyber threats. This way, you can assess your company’s weaknesses that could increase the exposure to cyber threats. You can conduct such a process by creating a project team from an existing department. Or, you can hire experts on BIA, as they may be able to evaluate critical areas of vulnerability in your business and measure the potential impact of threats.
The elements that a BIA should include are:
Maximum Tolerable Downtime (MTD) which indicates how long a given asset can be down before your business experiences significant financial impact;
Recovery Point Objective (RPO) is represented by the amount of data you can afford to lose on each system. Depending on the result, you need to decide if the amount is acceptable for your business;
Interdependencies are the rating of the dependence between systems and a certain asset. For example, if your assets are highly dependent on your internal network, you may need to reconsider your company’s safety practices;
Overall Impact, which measures what are the most important equities of your business so you’ll know where to strengthen security;
Why cyber resilience matters
A business that is aware of the importance of cyber security can achieve more than a company whose priorities are distributed only towards profit because:
Cyber resilience increases the organisation’s ability to respond to risk, meaning fewer potential incidents.
Solid cyberculture can help the business avoid fines and penalties since it can promote identifying and protecting the data, therefore, complying with regulatory and governmental oversight;
A resilient cyber business can help with avoiding a security breach, which is one of the worst things that can happen since it can lead to reputation damage;
A company focusing on cybersecurity is seen as trustworthy by clients, which can enhance its position among its competitors.
Steps to follow for building cyber resilience
Strategize a plan for developing your business capability to anticipate cyber events;
Withstand threats to your business by creating a cyber defence framework;
Defend your system through digital immunity and active cyber defence;
Inspect your security condition by practising advanced situational awareness;
Observe how your business system behaves to potential threats and address future risks;
Improve your ability to recover and prepare to avoid business interruption;
Have a plan for continuous improvement t support the business through self-assessment;
It's crucial to understand your business environment and take action accordingly because applying the proper method for enhancing security will also help the business be more scalable.
Bottom line
Each business must be cyber resilient because hackers can get through almost any unprepared system these days. So, we covered the basic steps for achieving strong cyber security, and we believe your business will be safe and protected from any potential risks if you implement these tactics.
