Failure to achieve this resilience could result in a loss of clients and even fines.
The following tips will help businesses and their employees stay secure.
1. Adopt a 'zero trust' strategy
The philosophy behind this approach is 'never trust, always verify'. With a workforce that operates beyond office boundaries, businesses cannot rely on traditional security (firewalls and VPNs) alone to protect their business.
This security framework reinforces a business’s security by requiring all users – both inside and outside the organisation’s network – to be authenticated, authorised, and continuously validated for security credentials and posture before being granted or maintaining access to applications and data.
2. Prevent phishing scams
Cyber criminals exploit the sheer volume of emails that are sent globally every day – around 306.4bn – by executing phishing attacks: a type of social engineering attack that cyber criminals use to trick employees into giving up personal data, credentials, or other information by masquerading as legitimate businesses.
We do not have time to forensically analyse every message that lands in our inbox – and it is this complacency that cyber criminals attempt to exploit.
To mitigate this threat, email filtering tools can be deployed to detect and block malicious emails to prevent employees from opening them and to restrict clicks or links from launching malicious websites – preventing viruses or malware from compromising a business’s system and exposing confidential client data to cyber criminals.
Strong security awareness among employees is a vital layer in the fight against cyber crime. Proactive businesses also deploy phishing attack simulators – a security awareness tool that helps employees to identify phishing scams.
This service reinforces a business’s security controls by periodically running test campaigns that emulate basic and advanced phishing attacks, empowering employees with a practical understanding of cyber security.
3. Implement cyber security training
To help mitigate cyber threats you must implement regular security training for your employees.
The ever-growing number of threats means it is essential to empower them with the knowledge and skills required to spot different types of cyber attacks and protect your data and infrastructure – after all, they are your first line of defence against cyber crime and the prime targets of attacks.
Online training courses are a convenient way to improve your employee’s cyber security skills.
Phishing simulation services typically include cyber security training, with employees that fail simulation tests being provided with engaging security awareness training. The training modules are designed to educate employees about specific threats such as suspicious emails, credential harvesting, password strength and regulatory compliance.
4. Independent security assessment
Businesses should engage with a third party to conduct comprehensive independent security assessments to form a clear understanding of their risk exposure and the efficacy of their current controls.
