There is no one-size-fits-all cybersecurity plan for organizations, but there are fundamental guidelines that all businesses must follow to stay safe from cyber-attacks. Making informed technology decisions becomes easier for organizations and leaders if they are aware of the common cybersecurity mistakes they must avoid.
Overlooking even just one security threat can severely damage an organization’s consumer confidence, negatively impact reputation, brand, and corporate valuations and also offer their competitors an advantage, and attract unwanted attention.
Here are a few mistakes that businesses might make that could reduce the effectiveness of their security program:
Overlooking Crucial Elements of Good Cyber Hygiene
Not following fundamental cyber hygiene best practices, such as employing stronger authentication and keeping up with security updates, is one of the most common errors businesses make.
In fact, good security hygiene can defend the company from the bulk of attacks.
Also Read: Ways to Minimize the Financial Impact of Cyber-Attacks
Organizations can take a number of actions to maintain good security hygiene and improve their overall security posture:
- Implement Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA): Organizations must always verify and authorize depending on all relevant data, such as user identification, data classification, location, service or workload, device health, and anomalies.
- Implement Least Privilege Access: Implementing least privilege access, one of the three Zero Trust principles, restricts user access with just-enough-access (JEA) and just-in-time (JIT) risk-based adaptive regulations and data protection to help secure productivity and data.
- Update Patches:By ensuring that their infrastructure, devices, and applications are rightly configured and maintained up to date with patches, organizations can reduce the risk of software vulnerabilities.
- Use Anti-Malware Tools: Organizations can thwart malware attacks by installing and activating anti-malware solutions on all devices and endpoints.
- Protect Data:Companies need to be aware of who has access to and where their sensitive data is kept. They must adopt best practices for data protection, including Data Loss Prevention (DLP) guidelines and the use of sensitivity labels.
False Sense of Security
Organizations are not necessarily secure just because they are compliant. Security protocols are most likely compliant if they meet the standards in place at the time. However, any new risks that have emerged after then won’t be protected against by businesses. Additionally, the skills gap, evolving privacy laws, and a tight budget all contribute to the business complexity of today.
Businesses shouldn’t think they are secure just because they don’t notice any indications of an incident or an active attack. They must not assume no one else has detected or exploited an unpatched server if they do. They must instead do a network scan and system check as though they already knew the server had been compromised due to that security flaw. While attackers are constantly looking for new entry points, businesses can help prevent unavoidable and potentially expensive harm by assuming breaches.
Not Fully Knowing the Environment
It can be difficult to identify and manage security and data risks within the enterprise, especially when security teams are unfamiliar with the environment. If they lack visibility across the environment, they cannot determine where the attack was launched. Many businesses don’t even have a basic inventory of all the devices connected to their network, let alone the knowledge of what systems are present and who has access to what.
Also Read: Four Key Components for an Effective Cybersecurity Recovery Plan
Businesses can find misconfigurations and vulnerabilities in almost real time by using solutions like threat and vulnerability management. Teams can also prioritize vulnerabilities according to the threat environment and detections made within an organization. These insights can accelerate the time to act while assisting security teams in identifying possible issues. Understanding the environment also reduces organizational complexity.
Absence of a Disaster Plan
Even if businesses have the right security measures in place, attacks are unavoidable. Having a disaster plan is more about limiting the damage after an incident has occurred than it is about preventing attacks. Employees must first know who to contact in the event of an attack, as well as where to look for advice on how to swiftly eliminate or mitigate the threat.
When scheduled or unplanned outages occur, implementing a Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery (BCDR) strategy can keep the data secure and the workloads and apps online.
Even though these mistakes are common, they can be avoided by using the right combination of guidance and solutions.
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