In today’s business world, protecting valuable data assets from cyber attacks is of the most importance. However, for companies to actually achieve this, they must keep up-to-date with cyber security trends, ensure they understand the latest security threats and respond appropriately when these new threats emerge.
Crucially, your organization needs to get to grips with the reality that cyber security services are no longer the sole preserve of the IT department. Instead, it must be viewed as a continual strategic risk management process, which is relevant to everyone from the board level, through to department managers, right the way down to individual employees.
In truth, anyone that has access to a computer, smartphone, tablet, wearable technology, or any other internet-enabled device is affected by cyber security and must take some responsibility for maintaining it. It is no longer good enough to have a security-aware IT team, and a CEO with no awareness of cyber security at all.
This new reality has made an investment in cyber security awareness training more important than ever. Meanwhile, in companies without any in-house, IT support, managed service providers (MSPs) can play a crucial role in improving your team’s overall security awareness, and in keeping important data assets secure.
Protect Against Cyber Threats
Experts within the field of cyber security agree that board members, managers and other senior figures within an organisation need to take a more active role in delivering cyber security success, and in mitigating cyber threats. The various cyber security services offered by an MSP can help with this.
Senior staff need to come to terms with the fact that poor IT infrastructure can have serious consequences. In addition to compromising data, it can lead to the worsening of relationships with customers, business partners and investors. Moreover, it can hinder financial results, financial stability and productivity.
Companies must get to a position where they feel assured that:
• The most sensitive data is protected from the threat of a cyber attack;
• Everyone within the business understands their level of accountability;
• All personnel know to make use of internet-enabled devices responsibly.
Ideally, to achieve peace of mind, experienced IT engineers should mitigate risk in accordance with NCSC Cyber Essentials Plus standards. Furthermore, steps should be taken to educate individual employees.
For London-based businesses, it is recommended that the cyber security services of fully qualified IT engineers are sought out, in order to protect against attacks. Such threats become both less likely to be attempted and less likely to be successful when the right measures are put into action. Some of these measures are outlined below.
Ways to Protect Your Business Data
The following are some of the most important ways to protect your business data. For companies that lack in-house IT support, a managed service provider (MSP) can be invaluable in helping to increase awareness and put these tips into practice, helping you to protect valuable company data assets.
• Staff must be educated on what to look out for in terms of unsafe websites, pop-up ads, links and attachments.
• Any adjustments to security measures should be made in line with industry standard security protocols.
• Systems and software must be updated swiftly when new patches are released, in order to plug security gaps.
• A strict password policy must be put in place, ideally along with multi-factor authentication.
• The right balance should be achieved between protecting data and avoiding stifling productivity or processes.
• Careful attention should be paid to information security standards like ISO 27001 and Cyber Essentials Plus.
• Open Wi-Fi networks are popular targets for attacks, so secure networks and/or VPNs should be used instead.
Cyber Security Awareness Training
One of the most important lessons for businesses to learn is the fact that even the most robust cyber security infrastructure and methods can be undone by simple human error. For example, if one of your employees is targeted by a phishing email, or willingly downloads a file that is infected, your whole business becomes vulnerable.
To put this threat into context, research from CompTIA shows that more than half (52 per cent) of security and data breaches are attributable to human error. The only way to protect against many of these errors is to make individuals more aware of the cyber security dangers that exist, and the pitfalls that need to be avoided.
The Cyber Security Awareness Training programme from Fifosys represents one of the most effective ways to improve employee awareness. It covers some of the most important cyber security topics, including phishing, malware, ransomware and other malicious threats, so that individuals are better equipped to guard against them.
Ultimately, it is vital to understand that companies are as vulnerable as their most vulnerable employees. Awareness training is one of the most effective ways to shed this vulnerability and protect your business.
The Final Word
No organisation can ever be made 100 per cent immune to cyber security threats. Nevertheless, companies that do not have in-house IT support can benefit greatly from the knowledge and expertise provided by a managed service provider, and such benefits can be essential in the modern age, where data assets are so valuable.
With that being said, no matter what steps you take to improve security, human error can still leave you vulnerable. To guard against this as much as possible, security awareness training programmes, enabling employees to more easily and reliably identify threats and avoid the pitfalls.
