Does your cyber security strategy need a revamp?

Covid-19 has offered up another push for businesses to think about refreshing their cyber security strategy. With threats on the rise and businesses adopting remote/hybrid working, old school strategies are less likely to be effective to advanced attacks and address remote working challenges.

The current threat landscape: A spike in cybercrime accelerated by Covid-19

Old school cyber security strategies have historically been incident response based, but today’s threat landscape means you can’t afford to wait for something to happen. Instead, all businesses should be thinking about switching to a proactive strategy that will prevent an attack, and prepare for remediation in case of an incident. Waiting is simply setting your business up for disaster.

Forming a cyber security culture

Your business could have the most innovative security technology and various security policies & governance. Whilst this is critical to a strategy, it’s going to be in vain if your biggest asset, (your employees), don’t take cyber security seriously. Why? Because human error is the biggest cause of cyber attacks, and if you throw the pandemic into the mix, you’ll know that phishing attacks soared by 220% due to Covid-19.

If you want to build a security culture, form a human firewall, and strengthen your defences, remember that the relevant leaders need to be involved and explain to employees why cyber security is important. This is something that should be considered before introducing them to cyber security awareness training. Only then will they take the necessary actions to proactively identify any phishing emails. Remember to teach them the ‘why’ before the ‘how’.

Ransomware is on the rise

 Whilst malicious actors have been targeting vulnerable employees, they’ve also been busy targeting businesses and holding them to ransom for large sums. Ransomware is here to stay, last year alone attacks doubled, and they didn’t just grow in numbers, but in sophistication too. The sooner you start thinking about prevention head on, the less chance you have of being a victim. The best way to prevent evolving ransomware attack is:

1) Cyber security awareness throughout your workforce
2) Invest in a comprehensive EDR product that will prevent, detect and respond to threats

If you aren’t actively thinking about combatting ransomware as a part of your cyber security strategy, then the chances are that you might be the next victim. Not only will you be paying in monetary terms, but your corporate/employee data, reputation, and trust with clients will also be on the line – that’s something you don’t want to lose.

The shift to Hybrid/Remote working

BYOD devices

Hackers are always finding new ways to exploit any vulnerable attack surfaces, and that puts employees with BYOD devices at high risk of being a target whilst being out of the office environment. Just think about how many unprotected endpoints are sitting within your business, accessing corporate data from various locations. It takes just one of those devices to be exploited and cause havoc to your business. That’s why if you haven’t already, you need a holistic view and control over your endpoints.

Cloud security

With multiple workforces accessing data via the cloud, it’s imperative that the correct measures are in place to keep data protected. If you haven’t already set up security permissions and MFA, then that’s probably a step you want to take. Credential hacking is big right now, and over 80% of breaches come down to lost or stolen credentials. Which brings us back to security awareness, it’s not just about the current threats, it’s also about enforcing basic password protection methods.

Those businesses still relying on their VPN for storing data should start thinking about the cloud. It’s been developed with data security at the forefront, ensuring that employees can securely share and access data. If digital transformation is something you’re considering, it’s best to stick with a reliable cloud services provider that has the expertise and knowledge to see this through.

Complex security stack

Although technology is important, in some way it creates challenges for IT leaders, particularly when several different solutions are being used which don’t integrate with one another. This is what makes your security architecture complex, because it can lead to more patchwork and difficulty in motoring and managing.

By consolidating your security stack, you’ll be able to improve your overall security strategy by closing the gaps creating the complexity. And if this is something that your business doesn’t have the in-house skills for, then it’s best to reach out to an experienced cyber security provider. They’ll be able to take a custom approach and help you plan a strategy in line with your business goals.

Looking to refresh your cyber security strategy? Get in touch with our cyber security experts.