Cyber defense: are you prepared?
There's a rapidly growing number of browser-based security attacks with cybercriminals preying on website vulnerabilities. With these evasive attacks on the rise, it's imperative to take a defensive approach to cybercrime to safeguard your business. A surprising number of organisations don't realise the breadth of exposure their business has to such malicious acts. All too often, cybersecurity is seen from the offensive. It's time to change perspective.
The effects of cybercrime on business
The consequences of a cyber attack can be disasterous and the long-term impact wide reaching. We touched on this in our article SMEs, Cyber Attacks, and Vulnerability. The repercussions run deep, affecting not only business operations, reputation, finances... but the emotional and well-being of individuals. Deploying harmful tactics such as clickjacking, cross-site scripting, SQL injection, or DNS poisoning, attackers are gaining unauthorised access to websites, obtaining sensitive information around users browsing habits, and acquiring crucial data inherent to a website's design. Once armed with this information, these criminals have the power to manipulate, steal, disrupt, expose, and destroy sensitive data. By injecting malicious code, scripts, or links, into otherwise trusted applications or websites, attackers are able to:
- entice users to click on malicious links
- skim data from forms on websites
- direct confidential data direct to attackers
- impersonate trusted companies by cloning their official websites
With the devastating business impacts of a cyber attack, it's cruicial to be guarded. Businesses have the means to take-charge and deploy proactive measures to help minimise the risk of becoming a victim of cybercrime.
Defending your business against cyber attacks
Straying from a reactive approach, the development of a long-term cybersecurity strategy with continuous monitoring and re-evaluation will help mitigate the risk of an attack.
Ultimately, it's about:
- awareness, keeping your eye on what's happening globally in the cybersecurity space
- being proactive, staying ahead of new threats
- implementing measures to mitigate these threats
- testing and validating the effectiveness at protecting your business against threats
- making a commitment to on-going evaluation of risk
At the frontline of this digital war against cybercrime, organisations must create resistance by implementing cybersecurity measures and best cybersecurity practices. The organisation needs to take measures to prevent cybercrime. —Koushik Dutta, upGrad KnowledgeHut
There are numerous security measures organisations can put in place, from basic fundamentals through to in-depth strategies aligned, and tailored, to your business operations. Some straightforward, preventative measures consist of:
- setting up multi-factor authentication
- using strong, unique passwords or passphrases
- implementing a firewall
- using anti-virus protection
- updating software on a regular basis
- protecting personally identifiable information and sensitive informaiton of your customers and your business
- setting up secure access control to data and systems
- backing up information regularly
- educating and training employees on cybersecurity
Another way to stay ahead of the curve is by implementing a Content Security Policy (CSP). A CSP is an extra layer of security and robust measure to accompany your existing security systems. The implementation of a CSP exposes specific types of cyber attacks and can stop malicious code from manifesting. It's a way to protect businesses from unknown and known bad actors wreaking havoc, such as disgruntled employees, helping to reduce the potential of external and internal attacks. It's critical to stay vigilant. Ask yourself, how prepared are we for a cyber attack? Make a committment today to get your cyber defense in place before it's too late.
Cybersecurity and compliance
The Australian Government lays out regulatory and enhanced cybersecurity obligations in vigilance, and in response, to the threat of escalating sophisticated cybercrime. Late 2023, the Federal Government released the 2023-2030 Australian Cyber Security Strategy (the Strategy) in an attempt to strengthen its regulatory frameworks. The Strategy seeks to 'improve our cybersecurity, manage cyber risks and better support citizens and Australian businesses to manage the cyber environment around them.' The Department of Home Affairs says the Strategy is game-changing for Australia’s cybersecurity and set out to:
-
shift cyber from a technical topic to whole-of-nation endeavour, focusing on providing better support to civilians and industry
-
deliver tangible action on the cybersecurity issues that matter most to Australian communities and businesses
-
harness the whole country to tackle cyber problems, enabled by stronger public private partnerships
The rise and cost of cyber incidents is driving government cybersecurity regulation and emerging as a top concern for businesses. As a result of compliance audits, business owners are wanting, and being directed to have additional security layers in their website hosting. We are also starting to see security and compliance being driven by risk insurers. As a natural progression in response to the evolving threat landscape it wouldn't be surprising to see indemnity or cybersecurity insurers mandating this. Cyber insurance is an increasingly crucial backstop to cybersecurity practices, John Reith, Partner Success Manager at DataStream Cyber Insurance, points out.
While enlisting comprehensive protections and preventing data breaches is always the best-case scenario, a sufficient cyber insurance policy can mitigate the sizable expenses that arrive in a breach’s aftermath... Because cyber insurance often requires policyholders to adhere to prescribed cybersecurity practices based on established compliance mandates, cyber insurance can also help businesses adopt safeguards to get their houses in order and stay on regulators’ good sides. —John Reith, DataStream Cyber Insurance
The benefit of cyber insurance is that by default it encourages the adoption of best practices. Coverage is contingent on prerequisite levels of security being in place. All businesses should have security measures in place whether it's mandated or not. With the awareness of the rise in cybercrime and its escalation in frequency and complextiy, it's imperative businesses are prepared to defend themselves against attacks. You can also leverage your cybersecurity measures to build trust with your customers and stakeholders.
For additional guidance, the Australian Government provides information with the aim to strengthen your business against cyber threats. Check out their Cyber Security Checklist or Small Business Cyber Security Guide as starting points.
We are also available if you have any questions or want to discuss this further, please do not hesitate to contact us. We're here to offer our support and help you with short-term effective remedies or strategic solutions.
Image Credit
'Stop' by Nadine Shaabana on Unsplash
'Informaion' by Thea on Unsplash
Disclaimer
We are not responsible for views expressed on external links.