In this day and age, it’s not hard to understand the importance of protecting your company’s digital privacy. But do you know how to do it effectively?
You might be surprised at how much of your company’s valuable data is available online, and you could potentially lose everything if hackers manage to access that information—which they’re more than capable of doing. The following tools are key to help keep that from happening.
NIST Cybersecurity Framework
The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) released its Framework for Improving Critical Infrastructure Cybersecurity in February 2014, which provides an overall strategic direction for improving cybersecurity. In addition, the framework lists ten standards that businesses can use to evaluate their security measures.
Cyber Incident Response Planning
The first step to Cyber Incident Response Planning is to make sure you have a clear understanding of what is considered an incident. Some people refer to all incidents as breaches, but that’s not necessarily true. Consider these factors
Cybersecurity Testing
It’s important to regularly test your security to make sure that you’re doing everything possible to prevent a cyber breach. But, what should you be looking for? First, consider the different types of cybersecurity:
• Penetration Testing – You can simulate a real-world attack on your computer systems to see if they will be resilient. Find out if there are any known vulnerabilities.
• Red Teaming – You create an adversarial network between two groups: red (competitors) and blue (your own organization). Teams play against each other in an effort to find weaknesses within your network.
• Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) – These tools enable you to monitor, analyze, detect, and manage alerts about breaches in your network. SIEM also helps you keep track of security compliance regulations.
• Digital Rights Management (DRM) – You can use these tools to ensure only authorized people can access sensitive data.
• Network monitoring – This helps you detect intrusions early on and monitor network traffic for anomalies.
Not all companies have access to a cybersecurity expert, even with all that information. Test them if you’re in doubt about how safe your systems are. There are many simple steps you can take to stay on top of your cybersecurity game.
Software Licenses
Find out what kind of software license you need. Is it a per-use license or a perpetual one? What kinds of limits are in its use? These little things can make all the difference in terms of your bottom line.
Open-Source Code
Is there anything nefarious hidden in code that you haven’t signed off on? Do you know what is in open-source code? A security operations center monitors all code at a site to discover dangerous bugs. With SOCs security software monitoring all systems, hackers are far less likely to exploit any opportunities for entry, preventing a breach before it happens. According to Micro Focus, “A security operations center, or SOC, is a team of IT security professionals that protects the organization by monitoring, detecting, analyzing, and investigating cyber threats.”
If a security breach happens, it’s important to know how to handle it. The first step is to contain as much damage as possible.
