The theme of the fourth week of Cybersecurity Awareness Month is “Cybersecurity First.” The focus is on getting businesses to know about the requirement for cybersecurity procedures to deal with vulnerabilities in products, procedures, and people.
Cybersecurity Tips for Organizations
One study states 64% of firms around the world have suffered some sort of cyberattack and the rate at which attacks are happening is growing. It is important for businesses to make sure that cybersecurity steps are integrated when making apps, goods, or new services and for cybersecurity to be thought of at the design phase. Safeguards must be integrated into products from the beginning. Cybersecurity should never be an afterthought.
Businesses must have a complete understanding of their IT environment and what assets should be secured. An inventory ought to be made for all resources and the location of all sensitive information must be known. A plan then has to be created to safeguard those assets, which ought to include overlapping layers of protection utilizing technologies like firewalls, antivirus software, spam filters, web filters, endpoint detection systems, encryption tools, and backup solutions. Patch management is likewise crucial. Software and firmware program updates must be employed quickly, with priority given to patching the major vulnerabilities.
Businesses need to embrace a mentality of a cyber breach being unavoidable, which means they must know how they will react to an attack if it happens. A business continuity plan needs to be created and tried. The plan must include emergency procedures while systems and data are not accessible, the restoration of systems and information, communication with stakeholders, compliance, and reporting breaches to proper authorities. Having an incident response plan ready makes certain the organization can still work in the event of a cyber breach and it will considerably accelerate the recovery time period and help to lower breach costs.
FBI Boosts Awareness of the Ransomware Threat
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is raising awareness of the risk from ransomware. A ransomware attack can result in the encryption of files making them inaccessible. The attacker issues a ransom demand in exchange for the keys to decrypt data files, though there are no assurances that files will be recovered after the ransom payment. It is likewise typical for sensitive information to be stolen prior to file encryption, and the attacker threatens to publish or sell the information when the victim doesn’t pay the ransom.
Computer and systems access is acquired by taking advantage of vulnerabilities, performing brute force attacks to determine weak passwords, and in most cases, by means of phishing emails. Hyperlinks are contained in emails, which lead users to sites that asked for the users’ login credentials or install files that contain malware. Quite often, emails have attachments with macros and other scripts for downloading malware so that the attackers get persistent access to equipment and systems.
The FBI suggested steps suggested to steer clear of ransomware attacks such as updating software, using patches immediately, using anti-malware solutions on all devices, backing up files on a regular basis and keeping backups off the internet, and teaching employees about identifying phishing emails as well as other risks.
It is vital for employees to have security awareness training. Cybercriminals often target employees, so employees ought to get security awareness training in the process of onboarding. They should be given the tools needed to keep their organizations secure including regular training.