How prepared is your organization to manage a cyber attack? Do you need to strengthen cyber security for your organization?
According to a recent report from ISACA, a professional association focused on IT governance, many security leaders anticipate a cyber attack on their organization in the near future, but few feel prepared enough to handle it because of constantly evolving threats (Van Wagenen, 2017). The report notes that dwindling resources, slow budget growth, increasingly hostile threats, the evolution of the Internet of Things, and expanding ransomware are major reasons why it is becoming more difficult to keep up with the changing threat landscape. Such reasons highlight the need for strong leadership and resource commitments to cyber security.
Do you want to strengthen your organization’s cyber security? Kevin Goodman makes the following suggestions in this article:
- Develop and implement incident management, threat audit assessment, and potentially even “war games” or table-top exercises.
- Search for vulnerabilities, focusing on what is available and valuable to hackers.
- Run regular scanning and penetration tests on network.
- Review and practice social engineering policies.
- Know which branches of law enforcement to contact should you suspect an issue.
Also, to strengthen cyber security, make sure your basics are covered with zero tolerance firewall, intrusion detection/protection, anti-virus, VPN, encryption, password hygiene and dual authentication access control. Other technologies and tools are available to support efforts in cyber defense such as predictive analytics, threat intelligence, and connecting with a Security Operation Center as well. Avoid costly technical investigation and brand damage that a data breach will likely bring by learning how to prevent and quickly detect potential threats.
For more up-to-date information on how to strengthen cyber security and protect enterprise networks from potential threats, check out IEEE’s new course, Cyber Security Tools for Today’s Environment.
Read more about ISACA’s Cyber Security report in Juliet Van Wagenen’s article here.
References:
Goodman, K. (2017, April 17). Cyber maturity will help ensure cyber security. Crain’s Cleveland Business.
Van Wagenen, J. (2017, June 7). 5 key takeaways from ISACA’s cybersecurity report. Associations Now.
I see this everyday on the job. You can have all the technical security you want, but the human firewall is still your weakest point. It is important now more than ever to educate your users on the security implications of their online activities.