Your technology department is facing one of the largest hurdles in the past decades: the challenge of protecting your business from cyber attackers. Cybersecurity is one of the top concerns for information technology professionals around the world as enterprises and companies of all sizes fall victim to hackers. Unfortunately, there is no one-size-fits-all solution to cybersecurity, and each business is likely to have unique issues related to their particular infrastructure setup, databases, government compliance requirements and more. Here are a few of the top cybersecurity strategies in use by businesses today that may help your IT department as they defend your organization.
Classify Cybersecurity as an Organizational Risk
The statistics prove that your business being attacked is almost more of a “when” than an “if” — more than 31% of businesses have seen their IT infrastructure attacked according to Cisco. When you classify cybersecurity as a risk to the organization and assign a financial impact to that risk, it’s more likely to raise awareness throughout the organization instead of just within the confines of the technology department. This added interest at the C-suite can help improve your funding for any recommendations, as executives become more fully aware of the astronomical cost of a data breach or other cybersecurity incident.
Be Like Big Brother
The US government has been quite proactive when it comes to protecting against cybersecurity attacks. The Department of Defense recently released their 5 keys to a successful cybersecurity strategy, including:
- Create flexible and adaptable processes that include large-scale analytics to help identify attacks and begin remediation while systems are still effective.
- Stop harmful cyber activities before they happen by upgrading critical infrastructure systems, setting and enforcing standards and streamlining data storage and information sharing.
- Create a cyber-cooperative that allows for proactive partnerships with like-minded organizations, information sharing with other entities and providing opportunities for the user community to identify and fix system vulnerabilities.
- Increase cyber awareness through additional training for upper management and all staff, creating new measures of accountability for vendors and contractors and accelerating deployment of cloud-based storage and other services.
- Cultivate talent in the workforce by increasing promotion of science, technology, engineering and math and incentivizing individuals with this particular skill set.
While these strategy points were developed for the DOD, they are extremely applicable to any organizations. Finding the right talent to support your current and future cybersecurity needs is crucial, and it’s becoming increasingly difficult to source full-time candidates in this in-demand job field. Organizations are finding that it’s both more cost-effective and workable to contract directly with cybersecurity experts to provide the knowledge and execution necessary to protect your organization against cyberattack.
Prioritize Planning and Resourcing
A lesson learned from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is the need to continually improve your cybersecurity posture. That includes continual planning and adequate resourcing for your teams that are working towards the crucial goal of being able to protect your organization from malicious actors. The failure to adequately plan is found to be the root cause in a large percentage of cybersecurity attacks, as organizations struggle to provide the budgeting and resources needed for cybersecurity. There can be a cascade of failures from a single breach, and the impact to the organization can be profound.
While your IT department may not have all the answers when it comes to cybersecurity, it’s good to know that there are solutions professionals available who can talk through your current configuration and resources and make recommendations to help you improve your readiness in the future. The team at Coretelligent works closely with your technology and business leaders to define the level of readiness your business requires. Contact us today at 855-841-5888 or via email to info@coretelligent.com to claim your complimentary initial consultation.
