How To Improve Your Company’s Cybersecurity

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Cybersecurity

As modern technology marches forward, cybersecurity threats by malevolent actors are becoming more and more of a concern for businesses.

In today’s digital world, keeping your company’s data, internal networks and employees safe is absolutely critical, and the potential consequences of neglecting cybersecurity altogether can be significant.

If your company is looking for strategic ways to beef up your cybersecurity and protect your company’s online place, this guide will help you get a strategy off the ground. We’re going to discuss network security, infrastructure, access control, incident response and why staying informed should become a priority.

Let’s dive in and look at how you can begin to improve your company’s cybersecurity one step at a time.

Employee Education and Training

The most challenging cybersecurity threats often come from within — something that can be mitigated and drastically reduced by implementing the right security systems coupled with employee education and training programs.

Companies need to begin establishing a culture of cybersecurity awareness within their organizations, implementing regular training on cybersecurity practices and teaching their employees how they can recognize and report malicious threats and phishing attempts. Don’t put computer security services on the back burner; stay proactive and ensure your employees are in the loop.

A part of this training should help employees set up multifactor authentication and strong, unique passwords, implementing password rules and timed expirations to force higher security practices internally.

With all of these elements in place, your company will be much better positioned compared to the rest of the marketplace and likely to your industry.

Network Security and Infrastructure

As briefly touched upon in the previous point, your company will need to implement an internal network security infrastructure that’s prepared to handle both internal and external cybersecurity threats.

This often means ensuring your organization uses updated firewalls, has intrusion detection systems in place and utilizes antivirus software. Regularly applying security patches and updating software helps prevent “zero-day” exploits, or exploits that just hit the mainstream and are in the process of being vigorously patched.

A comprehensive disaster recovery plan and backup system are also anecessity! You always hope you never have to use your backup, but when you do, you’ll be very happy that you have one.

As a final measure, conduct vulnerability assessments and penetration testing on your own infrastructure on a regular basis. This is usually done by hiring third-party experts or consultants and can help ensure your organization is prepared for the threats that lie ahead.

Access Control and Authentication

The best way to prevent “accidental” information leaks and unauthorized access is to have the proper access control and authentication systems in place from the get-go.

This means enforcing strict access control policies for all sensitive information, implementing role-based access control policies, ensuring remote access and VPN usage are secure and regularly auditing and reviewing user access privileges.

If someone is no longer in a certain role or no longer has a “need to know,” their access loop should be closed as quickly as possible.

Incident Response and Recovery

One of the best cybersecurity investments your company can make is to invest in a well-defined incident response plan. Do you know exactly what steps every team member needs to take when a cybersecurity threat is looming on the horizon or actively taking place?

Conduct regular simulations to improve your plan’s effectiveness, test it in action and be prepared to communicate with all required team members and external stakeholders as quickly as possible.

Partnering With Experts and Staying Informed

Even though all of these best-practices are excellent to have, it can be incredibly overwhelming to decide how such an implementation or integration will be accomplished — especially if your company runs legacy systems or has a very extensive network.

This is where collaborating with managed security service providers and cybersecurity experts comes into play. They’ll be able to give your company advice and keep you apprised of what’s going on in the industry.

All in all, staying proactive and knowing the threat you face is the first step toward keeping your company safe.

If you start building your security infrastructure one step at a time, you’ll have an established virtual fortress in no time!