All organizations face cybersecurity risks these days. Your data, as well as that of your customers and employees, is valuable to thieves and bad actors. Not only do you not want to lose your data, but your reputation depends on keeping customer and employee data as safe as possible.You need a solid cybersecurity program and, potentially, cybersecurity services to protect your business and customers.

What is a Cybersecurity Program?

A cybersecurity program is a plan to protect networks, devices, and data from unauthorized access, criminal use, and other issues, such as ransomware. A strong cybersecurity program also keeps your business functioning, avoiding downtime caused by criminal activity. Learn how to build a strong cybersecurity program to protect your business.

1. Understand Your Risks and Assets

Every company has assets that need to be protected, but they are not always the same. You should start by identifying your sensitive data and critical systems. These might include:

1. Customer and employee data: This might include names, addresses, telephone numbers, etc. For customers, you might have systems storing credit card numbers for future use. Your employees’ banking records may be in your system from direct deposit, and even their planned leave might be helpful to a burglar.
2. Intellectual property: Many companies have valuable intellectual property to safeguard. This might range from patents on a product to valuable marketing material.
3. Financial records: Your company’s financial records and tax details must also be safeguarded.
4. Cloud-based applications and storage: Cloud storage is typically safe if properly secured, but it does involve transmitting vital data over the Internet.
5. Critical systems: Hardware and software used in your operations.

For each of these areas, you need to assess your risks, which depend on the systems you use, how much IP you have, etc. Even small businesses can have valuable data. Getting professional help with a risk assessment can be helpful.

2. Implement Strong Access Controls

Breaches happen because people are careless with passwords. Ensure that all your staff use multi-factor authentication and, if working remotely or while travelling, a company-selected, strong VPN.

All staff should have role-based access to reduce the damage of a single account being compromised. This means employees can only access the data they need to do their jobs. For example, your sales staff do not need access to payroll, while HR does not need access to customer data. Also, the principle of least privilege should be applied, which means that users’ and processes’ access should be restricted to only what they need to perform their function.

As much as possible, minimize the number of people with “full” or “admin” access to the system.

3. Keep Software and Systems Up to Date

One way cybercriminals get into your systems is by exploiting software vulnerabilities. Software that is not updated is more likely to have vulnerabilities. All patches should be installed as soon as they are launched.

The easiest way is to enable automatic updates for all systems and software with access to your network, including employee-owned devices. Employees should also be encouraged to keep their devices updated to protect them.

Regularly audit technology and consider replacing hardware that can no longer run the most recent version and replace hardware running an OS that no longer receives security updates and cannot be updated further.

Get rid of applications you aren’t using and replace ones that are no longer supported.

4. Train Employees and Foster a Security-Aware Culture

74% of data breaches are the result of human error. Employee training is your cybersecurity program’s most essential and often challenging part. You need to foster a security-centric culture and regularly provide training. Help your employees understand that they are responsible for protecting themselves and each other.

Run regular training and occasionally test your employees with, for example, anti-phishing drills (send out an email and see how many of them click on the link).

Make sure employees know to:

• Use a strong password or, better yet, a passphrase.
• Do not repeat passwords across sites.
• Do not leave a laptop or phone unattended, and logged in.
• Use multi-factor authentication any time it is available.
• Confirm any requests for information or money sent in an email by another means of communication, ideally by phone or face-to-face.

Trained employees will also be less vulnerable to scams in their personal lives, which can compromise their productivity and cause them legal problems.

5. Backup Data and Prepare for Disasters

All data should be backed up on at least three systems, one of which should be in a different geographical location from your office using cloud storage. This allows for quick recovery in the event of a breach or a natural disaster. For example, the easiest way to deal with ransomware is to wipe and restore the affected device from backups.

Backed-up data in another location allows you to continue some operations if your office lacks power. Come up with a disaster recovery plan for both cybersecurity issues and the disasters you expect to happen in your area. If you live somewhere prone to blizzards and resulting power outages, for example, plan for extended outages, for people not being able to get to the office, and for people being stuck there. Test your recovery process frequently to ensure your backups are working.

6. Monitor, Detect, and Respond to Threats

A key part of modern cybersecurity is real-time threat detection. Firewalls and antivirus software have been used for many years, although the latter often relies on databases that have to be updated.

You also need intrusion detection systems to monitor your network and website for threats and unusual behaviour.

You need security information and event management solutions to collect and analyze data, determine what threats you are seeing, and create an incident response plan. Hence, everyone knows what to do when something happens. Make sure roles are clear so people don’t either trip over each other or think somebody else did it.

7. Secure Your Network and Devices

Everyone who connects to your network from offsite should use a properly secured VPN, especially if travelling. Network firewalls also help by keeping out unauthorized access.

All devices that connect to your network, including employee phones, must be fully up to date on security patches and run antivirus software. Encryption is also recommended to protect sensitive information.

Finally, divide your network into segments so that if there is a breach, it cannot reach as far. This is the same principle as role-based access.

8. Regularly Audit and Review Your Cybersecurity Program

Cybersecurity is a process, not a task. Periodic security audits should be used to evaluate your policies, technologies, and practices. This includes things such as checking you are using secure software and warning your employees about circulating scams and phishing attempts.

Regular penetration testing helps you find vulnerabilities by simulating attacks. Simulate attacks that are common in your industry at a specific time to ensure you are up to date.

Remember your third-party vendors; use only vendors with a good security program, and require them to maintain it to work with you.

Having a good cybersecurity program helps keep your business safe and profitable. Ensure that you train your employees, keep your software and systems up to date, back up your data, set strong access controls, monitor threats and secure devices, and perform security audits at the start and regularly.Don’t wait for a security breach to happen. Let Yobihouse help you with a free consultation. Contact us to let our experts help you build the right cybersecurity strategy for your business.