Like Ron Swanson’s Pyramid of Greatness or ordering coffee, it is possible to over-complicate and make basic tasks difficult. Securing your company’s data is an essential part of doing business today. Even small, growing businesses are threatened by cyber criminals and ransomware attacks. But when the cyber security tools you rely on are too complicated to use, you can’t get this vital task done.
In cybersecurity, we believe that tools and Managed IT providers should try to make life as easy as possible for small and medium sized businesses. In other words, we believe that when a business implements a cybersecurity service, easy matters.
To help make sure everyone can understand how cybersecurity works, here is how we break things down and talk about security for our modern, networked world.
THE 5 STEP PROGRAM
1. IDENTIFY POTENTIAL THREATS
Every business faces a unique set of cyberthreats, which means preventing a cyberattack requires custom security to fit your business’ needs.
For example, if your business provides a service online, your biggest threat may be a denial-of-service (DoS) attack in which the attacker focuses on disrupting the service to a network. If your business has a self-service website, cyber criminals will probably launch password attacks to try to gain access to your computer system or network. And almost every business will face phishing attacks that try to trick you or your staff into downloading malware.
Identifying these threats begins with a information security review to analyze your current risk score. This will serve as the foundation for addressing your unique IT infrastructure to defend against emerging risks. This review must be easily comprehensible so that you can identify vulnerabilities and specific threats your organization may face.
2. DETECT INCOMING THREATS
Threats are continually evolving, so your business needs an endpoint monitoring of systems that can detect an attack in real-time and alert trained forensic security professionals so they can take immediate action to neutralize the threat and outwit would-be hackers. Best-in-class cybersecurity practices and protocols identify and halt even the most sophisticated attacks, minimizing harm and reducing risk.
Based on your information security review, your IT provider or network administrator can restrict certain website access and enforce policies and standards. The components involved in maintaining an endpoint security management systems can include a virtual private network (VPN) client, up-to-date operating systems and software, and up-to-date antivirus software.
3. PROTECT YOUR BUSINESS
Following on the threat assessment made in step one, a business should implement advanced cybersecurity scanning tools to identify and neutralize threats across email, browsers, files, apps and more. Perhaps most importantly, based on the threats identified, you must provide training to educate your staff about security awareness and to protect your systems from ransomware, phishing scams and internal and external threats.
Despite your best efforts, a breach or cyberattack can still happen. That’s why it’s vitally important to have a plan to address a breach and restore systems quickly to minimize potential downtime. We
In the event of an attack an IT department or Managed IT provider should collect, analyze, and correlate information from network devices, endpoint logs and intelligence feeds. This information can help identify the origin of security incidents, identify fraudulent activity or other threats. It can also provide documentation and reporting tools if your business is under a legal obligation such as PCI, HIPAA and NIST-800.
5. RECOVER FROM POTENTIAL DISASTER
A reputable cybersecurity provider will routinely back up your data to an outside, secure storage location to assure it’s accessible in case your data is ever lost or stolen. This practice allows your system to get back up and running to its previous state in a minimal amount of time.
For example, a GFC customer was able to recover from a ransomware attack using a Backup and Disaster Recovery (BDR) solution. Within hours, the company was able to restore its computer systems to a time just before the infection occurred. Within an hour of discovering the attack, the company was able to resume working using a backup copy of their environment.
Hopefully, this breakdown helps make sense of a complex and continually evolving issue. We know that even small companies can achieve top-notch security in an age of savvy cybercriminals when they enlist the help of even savvier cybersecurity experts as part of a Managed IT solution. To help understand how these technologies work together and what threats your organization faces, talk to the cybersecurity experts at Gordon Flesch Company.
We can conduct a customized risk analysis and help you build a comprehensive cybersecurity battle plan based on the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s (NIST) Cybersecurity Framework. In the meantime, take our online cybersecurity risk assessment to get a general idea of some of the vulnerabilities your company may face. Then contact the Managed IT experts at the Gordon Flesch Company about our advanced cybersecurity services to pinpoint your specific needs.
