Reducing Exposure To Cyber Attack

The Internet is a hostile environment where threat of attack is ever present as new vulnerabilities are released and commodity tools are produced to exploit them.  Doing nothing is no longer an option.  Protect your organisation and your reputation by establishing some basic cyber defences to ensure that your name is not added to the growing list of victims. 

Cyber security is finally getting the attention it deserves in the boardroom. As the number of high-profile data breaches continues to rise, there’s been a greater emphasis on managing cyber risk to reduce the chance of an attack. Furthermore, while cyber security is everyone’s responsibility, resilient organisations require positive  leadership.

If the CEO visibly takes  cyber security seriouslyt hen this will permeate throughout the organisation and help create a culture of enhanced cyber security awareness.

• Boundary firewalls and Internet gateways - establish network perimeter defences, particularly web proxy, web filtering, content checking, and firewall policies to detect and block executable downloads, block access to known malicious domains and prevent users’ computers from communicating directly with the Internet

• Malware protection - establish and maintain malware defences to detect and respond to known attack code

• Patch management - patch known vulnerabilities with the latest version of the software, to prevent attacks which exploit software bugs

• Whitelisting and execution control - prevent unknown software from being able to run or install itself, including AutoRun on USB and CD drives

• Secure configuration - restrict the functionality of every device, operating system and application to the minimum needed for business to function

• Password policy - ensure that an appropriate password policy is in place and followed

• User access control - include limiting normal users’ execution permissions and enforcing the principle of least privilege

• Security monitoring - to identify any unexpected or suspicious activity

• User training education and awareness - staff should understand their role in keeping your organisation secure and report any unusual activity. We strongly recommend GoCyber as powerful training tool to transform user behaviour. 

• Security incident management - put plans in place to deal with an attack as an effective response will reduce the impact on your business

Home, mobile working and remote system access offers great benefits, but produces new risks that need to be managed. You should establish risk based policies and procedures that support mobile working or remote access to systems that are applicable to users, as well as service providers.