The competitive landscape of today’s business world requires companies and leaders to embrace digital transformation while simultaneously accounting for cyber security. This calls for a comprehensive cyber risk management strategy that needs to be built upon an in-depth understanding of an organization’s risk profile.
However, cyber risk management is no longer just about IT security. It is a company-wide affair that is as important for operational technology (OT) and facilities for IT. Effective cybersecurity risk management allows businesses to embrace emerging solutions and leverage third confidently- and fourth-party vendors without worrying about compromising their cybersecurity posture.
Sometimes it’s difficult to know where to start. This blog shares five critical habits that help business owners and IT execs mitigate cyber risk with clarity and confidence.
Stay Updated with the Latest Software and Install Security Patches
Hackers are always ready to pounce on the first old, weak system they can access. They don’t need much to get into a system that hasn’t been updated and fortified with the latest security patches.
For this reason, cyber risk management teams must keep hardware and software equipment regularly scanned and updated to ensure safety standards are met. There is also an option of hiring ethical hackers to find flaws in your digital and security system and infrastructure and patch them then. Lastly, ensure that your systems are being
Train Your Employees About Cyber Security Risk Management
Making cyber security risk management the sole responsibility of the IT department won’t do much good for your company. Instead of taking a siloed approach, it is better to get all hands on deck when it comes to contributing to a safer cyber environment at the workplace. For this, make your employees well-versed in cyber security by training and educating them on the matter.
Apart from that, the risk management team should work actively on creating awareness regarding cyber security protocols within the company. This will take care of internal cyber-attacks and falling for phishing scams caused by vulnerabilities or intentional malicious actions of certain employees.
Be Smart and Get Smarter With Passwords and Encryption
As per the report by Techjury, 63% of all organizational internal data breaches are a result of compromised usernames and passwords. Hence, it is a no-brainer that using good password management systems and setting strong passwords is a way for cyber security risk management.
Using password management tools helps you safely distribute credentials and helps employees set unique, encrypted passwords, change them periodically, and keep them safe in a protected vault. Also, PC admins should make sure that they never set the same passwords as the servers, as it makes it effortlessly easy for hackers to break into the entire system. You can block force attacks and make it even harder for hackers to get into your safety system by limiting the login attempts for each use or session.
Monitor Your Cyber Risk Environment, Data Leakage, and Data Assets
Cyber risk management professionals must monitor potential risks and proactively explore cyberattack trends. New cyber risk factors may come in the form of changed hacker strategies, newly identified security vulnerabilities, or the latest technology that makes old software and systems obsolete and open to hackers. Hence, cyber security risk management teams need to quantify these vulnerabilities on a big-picture basis to understand the risk environment better and take necessary actions.
In addition to the above, it is important to monitor data leakages that often compromise a company’s sensitive information. This can happen by saving information on unsecured devices, transmitting data over unsecured networks, or sharing data with vendors with risky security patches.
Collaborating with cybersecurity consultants can help you regularly monitor your data and leakages to mitigate the risk of data exfiltration.
Develop and Stick to a Breach Response Plan
Sometimes cyber-attacks occur even after taking all the crucial precautions. If a threat is detected or the occurrence of a data or security breach occurs, your company executives need to know what needs to be done to contain the damage. Having an incident management plan will help your organization to respond. Such a plan should incorporate every department within the organization as a cyber attack can impact the entire organization.
Ensure the breach response plan is written down and communicated to the entire organization to ensure formal implementation. This will prevent problem escalation as each employee will know their role in a crisis.
Summary
As cyber security threats become more prevalent, risk management professionals are getting increasingly concerned about them. The good news is that it is manageable to reduce such risks with thoughtful actions and reasonable protection.