The pandemic has made it an especially difficult time for businesses all over the world. It is crucial for businesses to learn how to be resilient against various challenges. What made things worse was the increasing types and instances of cyber attacks targeting businesses, especially as the pandemic compelled businesses to move online, increasing digital communications, and unfortunately, cyber risks. Reports show that from February to May 2020, more than half a million people were affected by breaches.
In light of this, let’s look at how businesses can build a strong cybersecurity and cyber-resilience program.
Many businesses have learnt from their mistakes and know that cyberattack is a real threat and shouldn’t be taken lightly. To prevent such attacks, cybersecurity measures are usually implemented at various levels of the organisation in order to prevent this cyberattack. A bitter pill these organisations have to swallow is the fact that, there is every possibility for these cybersecurity measures to fail. This is where cyber-resilience comes in.
Cyber-resilience is the ability for an organisation to continue its operations unhindered even after there has been a successful breach on its systems. Most of these breaches including dedicated denial-of-service (DDoS), man-in-the-middle attacks, and data theft are often perpetrated using viruses, malware, Trojans, worms, ransomware, etc.
Over time, there have been several programs proposed to be driven at achieving a stellar cyber-resilience program. The following however shows how a step-by-step model by which cybersecurity can be used to build a strong cyber-resilience program:
Prevention they say, is better than cure, and the same is applicable in this case. Preparing for the inevitable through tiered security approach using people, processes and technology is the first step towards achieving a strong cyber-resilience program.
The product step of cyber-resilience programs involves cybersecurity processes. Solutions involving sophisticated applications that work on endpoint detection and recovery, DNS protection, data protection layers and security awareness training are also necessary for advanced cyber-resilience levels. This also includes employee education on BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) policies, ensuring staff use a VPN as an encryption tool, and so on.
This is perhaps the most important stage of the cyber-resilience program. Here, the durability of systems is often tested and the ability for an organisation to keep its systems running goes a long way to determine if they pass the test or not. Oftentimes, a single platform for data and content is adopted – utilising content management and cloud collaboration processes so data can be isolated in the event of an attack while other systems keep running.
The ultimate goal of a cyber-resilience program is the ability to recover from an attack. Effective, granular and reliable backup and subsequent recovery to a different drive or network will enable timeless restoration of data in the event of an attack.
Up-to-the-minute threat intelligence technologies embedded into a Network Security Operations Centre allow system administrators to understand the latest threats and how to act upon them. This factor enables organisations to stay one step ahead in protecting their systems from possible attacks.
Image by Pete Linforth from Pixabay
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