In a recent article, the FBI indicated that cybercrime increased by 207 percent between 2008 and 2021. There was an estimated loss of $7 billion in business in 2021 due to cybercrime.
The probability of a successful cyberattack occurring at present is approximately one every 39 seconds. In the 21st century, cyber security is no longer considered a luxury but a necessity for all businesses.
Cybersecurity extends far beyond a collection of technologies, applications, and networking infrastructure. A culture of awareness, policies, procedures, supporting technologies, and a support network are all crucial to cyber security. Businesses must be able to recover and respond in the event of a calamity because no protective measures are fully effective.
A solid cybersecurity foundation can be built based on the Security CPR model, which encompasses three keystones:
- Communication and Education
- Prevention and protection
- Recovery and Response
Communication and Education
In terms of cybersecurity, the human factor poses a serious risk. Certainly, you and your team want to do the finest job you can for your company and for the people with whom you deal on a daily basis. Human nature is the prime weapon used by cyberattackers to gather information and coerce humans into taking harmful actions.
These actions, at the time, appeared to be helpful to the attacker.
Communicating with your team is the most effective way to ensure they are aware of potential risks. They should know what to look for and know what steps to take to institute action when they encounter them. A situation like this is particularly relevant when there is suspicion of an attack.
The message of security awareness is reinforced through education and security awareness training. Continuous education is crucial to keeping your team up-to-date with the latest cyber threats while maintaining a focus on cybersecurity at all times.
Prevention and protection
Defending against an attack involves preventing it from the start. The purpose of protection is to be able to stop an attack from taking place or in the middle of it. Security technology and services must be matched with policies and procedures that are reasonable to accomplish both prevention and protection.
Keeping attackers out of a system is the key to prevention. Next-generation endpoint protection protects your devices against malware, DNS/web protection blocks malware from infecting your devices, advanced threat protection tests your inbound email for phishing, malicious links, and infected attachments before they reach your device's inbox, and a cloud-based endpoint support system ensures features are continuously updated.
Protecting against an attack focuses on stopping the attack in its tracks. Using multi-factor authentication (MFA), you can ensure that an attacker with your username and password cannot access your account if they get their hands on your credentials.
Encryption of your disks and emails prevents an attacker from accessing and reusing your data if it is on your system.
Cybersecurity is a field where a wide variety of services are offered. However, these solutions do not have to be expensive. Proper configuration of your current security services is all that is required for some security solutions. Many other services are available for a small monthly fee per user or computer that can be purchased on an as-needed basis. As a company, you can use security services to manage your costs by making sure you prevent and protect against the most common types of attacks. You can also protect against those that would cause the greatest harm to your business.
Recovery and Response
No prevention or protection can be guaranteed to be foolproof. After a company has been affected by an incident, the process of recovery involves returning it to normal operation. Managing the effects of a successful cyberattack on your organization is determined by how you respond to the challenges and issues that arise.
It is the entire process of recovering your business from an incident, including the return of your business to normal operations (RTNO) and the return to business as usual (RTO). All of your computers may need to be wiped and reinstalled if they have been infected with ransomware.
To prevent yourself from becoming a victim of a cyberattack, you need to plan, implement, and verify continuity services before you come under attack. For example, running a pre-attack image of your servers and workstations in a temporary data center enables you to provide a quick return to operations (RTO) while the repair and recovery process is ongoing as an image of the servers is being created.
Responding to an incident is an activity that takes place across the entire company. If you are victimized by a successful attack, you will need to deal with your insurance carrier, employees, customers, vendors, as well as law enforcement if the attack was successful. The incident may also trigger mandatory reporting requirements in several jurisdictions. It may also trigger litigation and significant financial and other penalties if the possible loss of protected information is involved.
Conflicting interests are liable to add a level of complexity to your response. Even though your insurance carrier may press you to pay the ransom to save money on the recovery, you may be violating federal law. The law is 18 U.S. Code 2339B, along with other sections that might apply.
Successful recovery and response is the result of thinking exactly, what needs to be done to recover and respond to a disaster and establishing an incident response (IR) plan, developing and validating the plan of action, and ensuring that the resources you will need are either available directly, or through your insurance company.
Using the Security CPR model, there are several ways to understand, plan for, and respond to risks and attacks. When dealing with a cyberattack, it is imperative to incorporate these tenets as much as possible. Make sure that you remain aware of them throughout your operations.
