Over the last few years keeping connected has been the primary focus of almost every business. The introduction of new technologies has been a struggle for some, but overall has been embraced and kept us connected. But of course, with new channels come new opportunities for cybercriminals to try and access your data.
According to a ‘Cost of Cyber Crime’ Government report, it is estimated that cybercrime costs the UK £27 billion a year. The risk of cybercrime to your business is so relevant that it’s not a question of if you will be targeted and breached, but when you will be targeted and breached. Perhaps even more important is the question of how your business will react.
In this article we give you 5 ways you can start to improve your cyber resilience.
Improve cyber resilience within hybrid work
The sudden shift to hybrid work meant a lot of businesses had to adopt cloud applications and services. Despite having little of no knowledge of how to defend from potential cyber attacks. According to a Microsoft survey around 49% of organisations were significantly impacted by a breach due to cloud misconfiguration.
To strengthen your resilience organisations can protect themselves from potential vulnerabilities posed by hybrid work by partnering with cloud experts. You may think that securing internal networks and cloud work the same way but this is a common misconception. A cloud security specialist can help navigate administrator errors including misconfiguration and inconsistent implementation of security policies.
Make cybersecurity a key factor in your overall business strategy
A strong security posture should focus on building awareness of the threat landscape and establishing resilience, not on preventing individual attacks. You should begin by checking the zero-trust maturity stage of your organisation. This helps establish a resilient security posture and proactive approach to cybersecurity that facilitates more effective hybrid work, improves consumer experiences and confidence, and supports innovation.
Stop ransomware attacks early
Ransomware attacks are showing no sign of slowing down and you need to ensure that you’re stopping any threats early on in the process. The most common entrance points for these attacks include brute forcing remote desk protocol (RDP), vulnerable internet-facing systems, and phishing.
Your business must work to stop attackers in their tracks or work harder to gain access to multiple business-critical systems. Zero-trust principles like least-privilege access are especially effective at preventing attacks from travelling across networks and discovering valuable data.
Get the most from your existing resources
Organisations can advance their cybersecurity maturity by ensuring the comprehensive implementation of security tools. Building on a strong zero-trust foundation, organisations can optimise their existing security investments like endpoint detection and response, email security, identity and access management, cloud access security broker, and built-in threat protection tools.
Get your security fundamentals in check
The last point on our list to improve your cyber resilience is getting your basic security fundamentals in check. Basic security hygiene still protects against 98% of attacks, according to the Microsoft Digital Defense Report.
Enabling multifactor authentication (MFA), applying least privilege access, updating software, installing anti-malware, and protecting data can be the first defences against cybercriminals. And yet, across industries, only 22% of customers using Microsoft Azure Active Directory have implemented strong identity authentication protection as of December 2021.
For security leaders, this is an important lesson: start with identity. Whether it’s MFA, passwordless protection, or conditional access policies, having secure identity protections can minimise the opportunity for threat actors and raise the attack bar.
Improving your cyber resilience doesn’t happen overnight, it’s a continuous process. Use this article as a guide to help you get started. If you would like help with cyber security for your organisation. Contact our team who can help.
