Modern cybercriminals grow smarter and stronger by the day. New, more sophisticated forms of cybercrime hit the corporate network with pinpoint accuracy and devastating results. It takes a unique approach to stay on top of attacks by heading them off before they occur, or if that fails, finding a way to respond and recover from the aftermath.
Recent data published by Check Point Software Technology noted that cyber strikes grew by 28% , year-to-year, for Q3 2022. At the same time, the average number of weekly attacks per organization is now greater than 1,130. In the face of these concerning statistics, Check Point recommends that businesses prioritize “prevention over detection.”
Unfortunately, this can necessitate a level of specialization that most companies find difficult to afford. You may run into troubling budgetary issues while trying to maintain a staff that’s well-educated enough to run cybersecurity software. Even worse, these applications often don’t offer the right coverage anyway.
To succeed, you need someone or something that’s dedicated to maintaining security awareness. You also need appropriately positioned policy to address it, raise threat awareness, and prevent an impact on the company’s bottom line. That’s why it is critical to employ a cloud or managed security service as a part of your greater cybersecurity strategy.
Cybersecurity’s Three Pillars
A simple Google search will tell you that there should be three main pillars to a cybersecurity policy: technology, processes, and people. Like the legs on a table, the absence of any of these three could cause even the best-laid security efforts to crash to the floor, spelling disaster for your organization.
1. Technology
Threat scanning would be incomplete without considering how technology has proliferated in recent years. Unfortunately, it’s not just the good guys who are using these developments to their advantage. AI, bot intelligence, automation, and even the cloud can be used for malicious means.
There are multiple ways to use technology to provide defense against threats like these, and they are often most accessible through cloud managed IT or managed security services. Zero Trust architecture is one helpful method. It revolves around not trusting anyone or anything without first completing proper procedures. Identities need to be verified. Network access needs to be double- and triple-checked. Logins need to be confirmed, and, above all else, resources need to be completely protected until verification has occurred.
There are also other ways to utilize technology for cybersecurity. Businesses should focus on automation to secure their workloads, helping to establish and enforce the security policy. It also helps to look at the same artificial intelligence and machine learning developments that criminals do. With these algorithms, businesses can more easily scan their resources for potential issues, thus making them more proactive in network protection.
2. Processes
Ideally, organizations can create processes that pair with technology to seek out network vulnerabilities. This includes proactively identifying exposure to common risks, analyzing latest trends, and performing regular assessments of organizational assets. One of the key benefits to cloud or managed security is that it can automate those scans, factoring in software updates that address newly surfaced vulnerabilities.
3. People
Obviously, not everyone can be a cybersecurity expert, nor can each business afford to have multiple specialists on retainer. This problem is exacerbated by the nature of remote and hybrid work, where employees often lack supervision or a basic understanding of what they need to do to keep their company safe.
By outsourcing cybersecurity to a cloud managed solution or managed services provider, companies can let experts handle the issue and reduce the potential for poor choices from their vulnerable end users, automating security practices for them and raising flags should such a need arise.
Cloud/Managed Security Can Help
We’ve all seen the benefits of the cloud for improving organizational agility, especially as more companies embrace remote and hybrid work. With regards to cybersecurity, cloud infrastructure managed services can offer coverage for dozens of high-concern areas. These services can restrict access to networks and sensitive files, enforce end-user security by blocking manmade errors, help maintain regulatory compliance, and scan for the newest threats and attacks. In doing so, cloud services can support efforts to detect, mitigate, resolve, and even recover from strikes.
All of these capabilities are critical to a deep cybersecurity blueprint. They can rapidly address major headaches such as data breaches, information theft and misuse, malware infections, and distributed denial-of-service attacks, preventing crippling stoppages and devastating loss of revenue.
Similarly, managed services can help your organization to remain better engaged with threats in much the same way. Outsourced by nature, this form of cybersecurity addresses several crucial areas of business policy, including initial rollout, day-to-day management, administration, threat detection, resolution, and disaster recovery.
There are also other benefits for helping to cope and adapt to threats:
- Constantly updated risk databases, including for malware, ransomware, and phishing scams.
- Automatically revised definitions and recommendations.
- 24/7 proactive scanning.
- First-person support in the form of an account agent.
- Personalized monitoring for specific assets.
- Automated intelligence.
- High availability, free from threats of outage or downtime.
- Resources to support records retention and regulatory compliance.
- Policy enforcement to prevent negligence or misuse.
Do I Really Need These for MY Cybersecurity Policy?
Most likely, yes.
Your cybersecurity policy needs to be unflappable. It needs to provide a standard set of rules for employees, illustrating the practices that they need to adopt in order to keep your company safe. It also needs to show partners and clients alike that you are taking the appropriate steps to keep their personal information safe. A well-thought-out blueprint minimizes this risk by keeping workers on the same page, providing them with a thorough understanding of the dangers while helping to better detect, assess, treat, and recover from threats.
Regardless of your organization’s size or scope, there needs to be a focus on keeping pace with threats as they emerge and evolve. This includes cutting down on vulnerability to both known and unforeseen risks. There also needs to be a focus on addressing and mitigating attacks that somehow manage to seep through. The key to an efficient cybersecurity policy is that it maintains a set of go-to practices which employees can use to preserve data integrity, or recover and re-secure assets that are compromised. This all helps to keep your business operations running nonstop, regardless of attack status.
While balancing these considerations, be mindful of your own specific needs. You should develop a customized approach to security that accounts for your own network, data, information, and other aspects that necessitate cybersecurity policy in the first place. You should also outline specific rules to protect those assets. With adequate policy, every employee should play a critical, unified-front role in keeping their networks, information, business, and jobs intact.
Despite the unique nature of individual cybersecurity policies, there will always be a few universal needs:
- Rules regarding the types of data that are sensitive and not to be shared.
- Detailed guidelines regarding how, when, and by whom data is handled.
- Exclusive practices as to how data can and cannot be used.
- Lists of approved devices and other online accessibility considerations.
- Rules dictating sound password management.
- Mandates regarding general cybersecurity best practices.
Of course, a company’s cybersecurity policy is only a document. Without enforcement, there will be little recourse if things go south. Therefore, it’s useful to work with a services provider. By outsourcing your cybersecurity needs, you greatly reduce the risk of mistakes or maliciousness by your own staff. Another reason to use such services is monetary: the pay-as-you-go cybersecurity model helps to improve overall cost efficiency, as you are paying only for the elements and capacity that your organization specifically needs. Think of the money you could save by turning to a cloud managed service where you don’t have to concern yourself with the latest and greatest investments in order to keep on top of the risks. Even if the subscription cost seems too high, it is likely lower than the cost of suffering a cyberattack. Last but not least, perhaps the biggest benefit of outsourcing is that it streamlines your operations, freeing you up for more business-critical tasks that are in your wheelhouse.
There are a lot of considerations when setting up the cybersecurity practices that your business will enforce, but outsourcing to a provider can grant multiple benefits, and certainly should be considered as a prime option.
Thank you for trusting us to help with your cybersecurity needs. Contact us any time – we’re always happy to help.
Adam
