Are you falling behind the current standard of business cybersecurity? Discover what your colleagues in the business world are using to keep their organizations secure.
The absolute biggest mistake companies make about cybersecurity is to assume that they don’t need it and that they are not a target. Or even worse, they think they are already protected, without taking any steps to ensure they are.
Here’s the reality: no matter how big your business is, or what industry you operate in, you are a viable target for cybercriminals.
You can’t afford to hope you’re protected. You have to make an effort to keep your defenses up to date and prepared to fend off the ever-evolving range of weapons in use by cybercriminals today.
The Top 3 Cybersecurity Tools Businesses Are Rushing To Adopt
According to a recent study by Okta, tens of thousands of businesses worldwide demonstrate an ongoing commitment to enhancing their cybersecurity. They noted a few trends in the types of technologies being more commonly adopted, which include…
Endpoint Monitoring & Management
Basic cybersecurity technologies aren’t enough on their own any longer, which is why businesses are investing in more sophisticated solutions. Let’s consider consumer-level antivirus, to start.
Antivirus is installed to protect at the user level, known as endpoint protection, and is designed to detect and block a virus or malware from taking root on a user’s computer, or worse, accessing a network to which the user is connected.
Because of antivirus’ limited capabilities, it’s unprepared to deal with a range of modern cybercrime threats:
Advanced Threats
An antivirus’ ability to spot threats is dependent on prior knowledge of those threats. As cybercriminals evolve their attack methods, they can easily circumvent basic antivirus defenses.
Polymorphic Malware
Again, the signature-based tools that antivirus software relies on can be negated by employing malware that avoids known signatures.
Malicious Documents
Antivirus programs can’t spot a threat when it’s disguised as a harmless document.
Fileless Malware
By executing its processes in-memory, malware can avoid being spotted by antivirus programs that only scan files.
Encrypted Traffic
Cybercriminals can also hide their activity in encrypted traffic, preventing your antivirus from ever noticing them.
The point is that, on its own, antivirus software is not enough to defend you. The best way to improve your cyber defenses is with a comprehensive and reliable Endpoint Detection And Response (EDR) solution. EDR is an emerging technology that addresses the need for continuous monitoring and response to advanced threats.
This is a vital service that protects endpoints like laptops, desktops, smartphones, tablets, servers, and virtual environments. Endpoint protection may also include antivirus and antimalware, web filtering, and more.
Mobile Device Management
No matter what kind of cybersecurity you have in place at the office, it won’t extend to the mobile devices that have access to your data.
This is a critical limitation of your cybersecurity software, and it’s obvious when you think about it—if your firewall is only installed on your work devices, but you let employees use personal devices and home workstations to access business data, then obviously you won’t be totally secure, and you’ll be left open to critical vulnerabilities that will only be more common in the coming years:
- Lost or stolen devices can do major damage to you, leading to compromised data and lost work.
- Unsecured Wi-Fi hotspots and other vulnerabilities allow intruders inside your private network.
- Mobile devices are becoming bigger targets for cybercriminals, who use malware and other methods to attack smartphones and tablets.
This is why more and more businesses are implementing Mobile Device Management (MDM) policies and solutions. They dictate how your employees can use their personal devices for work purposes, dictating which security apps should be installed, and what best practices need to be followed.
An effective MDM policy should also instill safe and secure practices for employees that use personal devices for business purposes. Key points include:
Dictate Mobile Device Use
Integrated into your internal network, these devices can be used to access, store, transmit, and receive business data.
You’ll need to have policies in place to regulate how employees use their devices to interact with sensitive data. Take the time to consider the risks associated with mobile device use, such as the potential for devices containing business data to be lost or stolen, infected with malware, or the potential for accidental disclosure of confidential information through sharing a device with a family member or connecting to an unsecured wireless network.
Identify And Address Potential Threats
A risk analysis will help you identify vulnerabilities in your security infrastructure, and help you determine the safeguards, policies, and procedures you’ll need to have in place.
Whether the devices in question are personal devices or provided by your IT consulting, you will still need to have a clear idea of how they’re being used to communicate with your internal network and systems.
Assessments should be conducted periodically, especially after a new device is granted access, a device is lost or stolen, or a security breach is suspected.
Document Policies For Reference And Review
Policies that are designed for mobile devices will help you manage risks and vulnerabilities specific to these devices.
These policies should include processes for identifying all devices being used to access business data, routinely checking that all devices have the correct security and configuration settings in place, whether or not staff can use mobile devices to access internal systems, whether staff can take work devices home with them, and how you will go about deactivating or revoking the access of staff members who are no longer employed.
Set App-Based Restrictions
Maintaining mobile security isn’t just about having the right apps—it means following the right protocols, to eliminate unknown variables and maintain security redundancies:
- Review installed apps and remove any unused ones on a regular basis.
- Review app permissions when installing, and when updates are made.
- Enable Auto Update, so that identified security risks are eliminated as quickly as possible.
- Keep data backed up to the cloud or a secondary device (or both).
Make Your Staff A Part Of The Process
Everyone on your staff should be educated on how best to use mobile devices to avoid costly security errors. Your safeguards can’t protect you or your clients if your staff doesn’t understand your policies and procedures, and lacks a basic grasp of security best practices.
Your entire team should be taught how to secure their devices, how to protect business data, what the risks are, and how to avoid common security mistakes.
AI-Powered Cybersecurity
Security based on advanced algorithms that can adapt and learn creates a system that can become familiar with the normal patterns associated with each user and device, detecting anomalies in those patterns quickly.
Essentially, something known as a neural net can be used in cybersecurity efforts. Based on a robust algorithm, the neural net can “learn” to spot patterns of data associated with previously identified and classified spear phishing emails.
By incorporating this technology into an email client’s spam filter, the filter will be able to spot fraudulent incoming emails and eliminate them before they reach the recipient.
One of the best parts about neural nets is that they continue to learn and improve the more that they are used. With increasingly more data to draw from, this Artificial Intelligence will become more and more accurate in doing its job. Investing in Artificial Intelligence technology is critical, as machines can respond much more quickly to the way these attacks are adapting.
Need Expert Cybersecurity Guidance?
Don’t let your cybersecurity suffer, and don’t assume you have to handle it all on your own. Our team can help you assess your cybersecurity and develop a plan to protect your data.
