Corporate Cyber Security. What It Is and How to Improve It
Cyberattacks are lethal for most businesses. That’s why corporate cyber security is slowly becoming a must for every organization in order to avoid losing revenue and customers. Thankfully, there are many steps a company can take to protect themselves from these threats.
A breach into the system is the second-biggest issue organizations fear, after natural disasters. Less than a decade ago, these threats were the 15th concern within companies according to CESIN. These alarming statistics show how important it is to take action against hackers.
Why It Is Important to Adopt Corporate Cyber Security Measures
In order to stay with a competitive advantage, organizations depend on how well they use their technology. This includes automating repetitive tasks, improving reports, and taking advantage of data to improve their strategic decision-making.
The more an organization relies on technological information, the more likely it is to become vulnerable to security breaches such as cybercriminals, who find vulnerabilities within the corporate IT ecosystem. Among these cybersecurity risks, ransomware, malware, and phishing are the most common ones.
There are several reasons why adopting a cyber security system is a top priority for companies. Successful cyberattacks are known for being very expensive to recover from, and their costs may vary depending on the business’ size.
In addition, there are other reasons why every company should seriously think about hiring a corporate cyber security system:
To Prevent Sophisticated Attacks
In order to avoid the multiple possibilities of suffering a data breach, companies must implement stronger controls. This happens because malicious activity has been advancing at a huge rate and has the power to completely decistate an organization. New and more complex hacking tools and softwares are being developed every day. This means even a less-skilled cyber criminal can successfully breach an organization. Acquiring programs such as antiviruses, running a routine analysis, and opting for authenticators can help mitigate this.
Due to the Huge Increase in Internet Devices
The increase of devices that are being connected to the internet is higher than it ever was. It’s estimated that there are 27 billion electronic devices connected worldwide during the year.
Most of these aren’t secured properly, making them extremely vulnerable to hacking and sensitive data stealing. A good cybersecurity service will ensure that every device of an organization is secured against hackers.
Other Ways to Strengthen Corporate Security
There are many practices that corporations can follow in order to strengthen a company’s protocol. This can ease the identification process, mitigating and preventing future risks.
Assessing Specific Risks
To prevent a security breach or risk, first it is necessary to understand what it is. Assessing all the possible risks an organization has is the easiest way to start. A cybersecurity audit checklist can be an excellent resource for beginners in internal data security.
Identifying What Needs Protection
Identifying which data needs to be protected within an organization is a crucial step towards cybersecurity. The most simple way to achieve this is by consulting compliance standards relevant to the company. Examples of this are:
- GDPR: relates to the privacy of personalinformation of the European Union residents.
- HIPAA: relates to information for organizations that deal with healthcare data.
- PCI: for financial institutions and other companies that work with credit card data.
- NIST: focused only on organizations that operate within the United States.
Storing Sensitive Data
Storing important data in environments covered by robots infrastructure to prevent unauthorized access is a must. This data also needs to be backed up regularly by the organizations, done by security experts that keep it in highly protected places.
Updating Software Regularly
When software is out-of-date, it presents the perfect opportunity for hackers to gain access to an organization’s infrastructure. If all applications are updated and secured, the vulnerability will be lower, preventing many potential threats.
Raising Employees' Awareness
Having top-notch security systems isn’t enough if nobody is prepared to use them or errors keep being committed by personnel. Everyone in the company needs to understand and comply with the different security measures planned by corporate cyber security.
Mandatory training to educate employees about the new policies, and how to protect their data and devices are good options.
For remote workers, managers should consider policies that replace personal devices with ones given by the company. These objects should have strict security measures and updated software that can mitigate any threat.
Adopting Disaster Recovery and Continuity Plans
The more prepared an organization is against a cyberattack or disaster, the easier it will be to recover. This can allow the company to be back online as soon as possible with easy recovery. To achieve this, not only corporate cyber security is needed, but also disaster recovery plans that will make the process that much easier.
While these plans can cost a lot, their price-benefit ratio is huge. Making an effort to maintain everything is worth more than losing the entire company after going bankrupt due to a hacker attack or a natural disaster.
Corporate Cybersecurity in Gibraltar
Gibraltar’s The IT Lab offers many of these services for organizations that want to keep their organization threat-free.
The team provides fully accredited and industry-leading security services, such as fully managed cybersecurity, expert testing, and consultancy. In addition, professionals can train and capacitate the company’s employees to avoid threats in the future.
These training sessions are simplified so anyone can understand them, with a 24/7 call service depending on the acquired plan. Everything is covered within IT Lab plans, so anything a company might need to be secure will be available. This also includes special and custom requirements.
Eliminating all the possible cybersecurity vulnerabilities within a company is included too. This isn’t part of a one-time fix call but done as a long-term relationship, where IT works along with the client for an extended period.
Conclusion
Corporate cyber security is essential in keeping a company alive after an extremely dangerous cyberattack. If contingency plans are successful, a business can recover quickly without losing too many customers and too much money.
Raising awareness about this kind of threat is also very important, since a lot of sensible data is stored in those organizations. Any leak could cause a catastrophe not only for the organization but for the clients that trusted them.