Media and the security industry in general do a comprehensive job of covering the latest cybersecurity news, breaches and attacks. Cybersecurity is always in the news. If you check Google Trends search term for cybersecurity, you will find that the queries have increased fourfold since 2014.
Senior Leadership is paying more attention to cybersecurity
Cybersecurity protection and cybersecurity are hot topics among those who manage the companies’ security defences. The C-suite is particularly concerned about the risk and cost impacts of a potential breach.
Cybersecurity news drives many priority changes by managers that often cause stress within the security department.
However, beware of alarming headlines. They can completely derail your vulnerability management efforts. This is because when you create expectations and deadlines that are unachievable you divert resources from other priority tasks.
This problem is further aggravated by the constant hype created by new threats.
Remember that panic can adversely impact an organization’s ability to execute cybersecurity protection.
What organizations need instead is a solid set of security practices and stay updated about what’s going on with other companies.
Keep your focus on cyber-risk
A good security strategy is rooted in a risk management plan based on a consensus of opinion about the larger and high-priority threats to the organization.
Management will be confident if it knows that the infrastructure that you have built is resilient to attacks.
Start by outlining a set of cybersecurity protection best practices in place. This means documented processes for each task. From applying patches and updates to setting file permissions, backing up data and administering user directories.
Taking care of the basics first will protect you against the most common threats and enable a speedy recovery in case of an incident.
As a cybersecurity protection measure, you can conduct simulations of high-risk scenarios. This will help you reveal where you are protected and where your current system falls short. Share these results with the top executives to give them the peace of mind and allow them to invest wisely in case additional funding is required.
Reality check
This doesn’t mean organizations should turn a blind eye to research and studies.
On the contrary, pay attention to studies that trusted brands conduct across a wider cross section of groups and ideally over a period of time.
Subscribe to security focus news sites and follow the experts. Cybersecurity protection experts and thought leaders do a better job of covering the news in-depth as compared to mainstream media.
The sharing of security information has become more sophisticated and easy thanks to security information and event management systems (SIEM) for detecting intrusion. Therefore, using SIEM solutions to secure your business’s data means you can benefit form real-time threat detection and rapid response capabilities, boosting your business’s overall cybersecurity measures.
Security orchestration, automation and response (SOAR) is a companion system that helps security teams to synthesize threat information from a number of sources. This helps them to contextualize the data and respond to events instantly and automatically.
Silver lining in the information overload
There is growing executive scrutiny now and a lot of discussion and debate. Cybersecurity managers are in a better position now than ever to get the required funding. Security leaders must take advantage of this opportunity but also be careful in trusting the sources and eliminate “panhandling”.
Some best practices that apply to all businesses
Whether your business is small, medium or large some advice that is applicable to everyone:
Software updates: Try to apply patches and keep your software up to date as much as possible.
Employee education: Employee awareness goes a long way in thwarting potential attacks. Teach your employees to recognize signs of breach and how to stay safe when using your network.
Security posture: Formalizing and enforcing security policies is necessary to lock down the system. Build a culture of caution and focus on preventive practices to strengthen your security.
Have an incident response plan: Run a drill of your incident response plan and tweak it where necessary so that your employees can detect and control the breach quickly, in the event of a breach.
It is true that you can never be too safe in the world of cybercriminals and hackers but panicking unnecessarily without contextualizing information and news is equally detrimental to your cybersecurity.
