Businesses today need proactive cybersecurity strategies to stay secure. Cybercriminals today have become more sophisticated and imitate a legit business model to accomplish their malicious goals through the evolution of the Cybercrime-as-a-Service industry
With businesses strengthening their cybersecurity posture to keep their IT infrastructure secure against various threats and risks, cybercriminals are also becoming more advanced. Cybercriminals today have become more sophisticated and imitate a legit business model to accomplish their malicious goals through the evolution of the Cybercrime-as-a-Service industry. According to a report published by Statista titled “Estimated cost of cybercrime globally 2016-2027,” the cybercrime cost worldwide was estimated at around USD 8.4 trillion in 2022. The report also predicts that the cost of cybercrime will surpass USD 20 trillion by 2026, which will witness a profit jump of 150% compared to 2022. Irrespective of the business type, size, or industry, a full-blown cyber-attack can disastrously impact business continuity due to production loss, tampering with the data, loss of money and intellectual property, or reputational damage.
“It’s not only big businesses that are falling victim; there will undoubtedly have been countless successful breaches of smaller enterprises that have not made the headlines but may have caused significant damage to business operations. As the cybercriminal threat landscape continues to evolve, we need to find new ways to bolster organizations’ security posture and reduce the likelihood of costly cyberattacks beyond reactive cybersecurity measures and insurance policies,” says Lawrence Perret-Hall, Director of CYFOR Secure.
CISOs can leverage reactive or proactive cybersecurity strategies to secure their IT infrastructure from various threats. Many enterprises rely on a reactive cybersecurity approach, letting themselves fall prey to a cyber-attack and then taking measures to minimize the impact. However, according to the current threat landscape, relying on response-based cybersecurity planning is no longer effective. Enterprises need to have proactive cybersecurity measures to improve vigilance and resiliency in the security posture. Following are the top 5 reasons why businesses need to embrace a proactive security plan:
Stay One Step Ahead of the CyberCriminals
It is now or never for every organization to start strengthening its cybersecurity posture. Large, small, and medium businesses increasingly become prime victims of various full-blown cybercrimes. Businesses cannot put their sensitive data at stake and have business disruptions or legal litigations due to it. Far too often, businesses rely on reactive responses to security breaches, contacting MSSPs (Managed Security Service Providers), cyber insurers, and legal professionals only after an attack. Instead, these conversations and incident response planning should be ready all the time, so that teams are prepared in case the worst happens. Cybersecurity needs to become a proactive endeavor. This security approach incorporates a variety of measures – from training the workforce in recognizing a phishing attack to monitoring the dark web for any stolen credentials and ensuring playbooks are in place and readily available.
“For those organizations that aren’t sure where to start, SMEs especially, it can be daunting to know what to prioritize. The best place to start a more proactive approach to cybersecurity is auditing what is already in place. This will offer an accurate view of the company’s biggest vulnerabilities, the location of its most sensitive data, and the most critical steps that need to be taken to protect the business. For a lot of smaller businesses, they don’t know what they don’t know. A cybersecurity audit will give them a better idea of where their major risks lie and how best to remediate them,” adds Lawrence Perret-Hall, Director of CYFOR Secure.
The proactive cybersecurity approach enables the security teams to determine their pain points and make a strategic plan to stay one step of the cybercriminals. This enables them to quickly enforce the incident response plan once they detect an attack.
Streamline Reactive Cybersecurity Measures
Once enterprises embark on a journey to design and implement proactive cybersecurity strategies, they are on a path to strengthen their incident response plans. Because when there are effective proactive cybersecurity measures enforced, it automatically strengthens the reactive approach. Businesses that design and implement reactive and proactive cybersecurity measures will work with each other to improve their security measures.
Improve Resiliency with Evolving Threats
As discussed earlier, with the increasing availability of Cybercriminal-as-a-Service, cyber threats today are continuously evolving and becoming more sophisticated. Because of this service, even amateur cybercriminals can find loopholes in the most robust security postures and penetrate them to accomplish their malicious goals.
CISOs need to design and develop a highly adaptable cybersecurity strategy to enhance resilience against these sophisticated threats. Security teams that do not focus on evolving threats will lag and be exposed to various threats. An effective proactive cybersecurity plan enables the security teams to be educated about the latest developments in the cybercrime industry and design constructive prevention plans.
Constantly Strengthen the Security Posture
One of the significant reasons why businesses need a proactive cybersecurity approach is to improve their defense strategies constantly. Businesses that do not enforce proactive security measures will have a stagnated security posture which might have become obsolete according to the current evolved threat landscape. And if the cybersecurity posture stagnates, businesses might be exposed to various threats. Enterprises cannot wait for a full-blown attack to determine their attack surface areas. Proactive cybersecurity measures enable security teams to find all the potential attack surface areas before cybercriminals exploit them. Such cybersecurity strategies help the SecOps teams continuously strengthen their defense mechanism against various threats.
Also Read: Challenges of Cloud Security in the Metaverse
Improve Compliance Adherence and Gain Customer Trust
Many businesses find it challenging to comply because they lack an in-depth understanding of their organization’s risks. Another significant reason enterprises should adopt a proactive cybersecurity plan is to prioritize assessing their risk and implement the best practices to remediate the potential risks. Enterprises that can successfully adopt these strategies can pass the compliance audits at any moment. Proactive security strategies enable businesses to add a layer of security to reactive security measures. A few regulatory bodies expect businesses to design and enforce a multi-layered cybersecurity strategy to strengthen the customers right to privacy. One of the biggest challenges enterprises face is gaining the complete trust of their clients and developing trustworthy relationships with them. Companies spend tremendous effort, energy, and money to gain customer trust. A successful data breach will put all these efforts, energy, and money into vain.
Designing and implementing an effective proactive security plan should be a top priority for the security teams. CISOs need to consider this cybersecurity strategy as their first line of defense against various sophisticated cyber threats and their disastrous impacts. Enterprises that show their clients respect their right to privacy and have effective proactive cybersecurity measures will help gain trust.
These are the top 5 reasons modern enterprises need to design and enforce effective reactive and proactive cybersecurity approaches to secure their IT infrastructure against sophisticated cyber threats and risks.
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