You may be asking yourself this question. Cybersecurity seems like a hard thing, and maybe it is. But there are some easy ways to vastly improve your cybersecurity program that are easy and inexpensive. If you haven’t started a cybersecurity program yet, you might just start here.
According to the 2013 Trustwave Global Security Report, the top four mistakes revealed by forensic audits are:
- Using weak or default passwords. This is the easiest fix. Make sure that you change the default password on your devices (computers, routers, wi-fi access points, and IOT devices such as baby cams and thermostats.) Your passwords need to be a minimum of 10 characters long, but longer is better. Use password complexity. Make your email and banking passwords long, hard, and unique, as losing these accounts can be costly.
- Not training your staff. Cybersecurity awareness training is a must. Most exploits get around your expensive security hardware through the use of social engineering, phishing, and spear-phishing attacks against the trusting humans in your business. Knowing what it looks like is most of the battle. Knowing what to do about it is the rest. Training your staff gets them there.
- Missing the attack. Many company owners don’t know if or when they have been attacked, simply because they are not looking for them. There are simply things you can do to monitor your event logs or your internal network traffic for evidence of a breach. The more quickly you respond to an attack, the less damaging and expensive it is for your business.
- Third-party vulnerabilities. Many businesses have been hacked through the network access granted to a trusted client or vendor. Your security will only be a strong as theirs, and it is up to you to check. Vulnerabilities can also happen through cloud services, web apps, and insecurely coded custom applications.
We are to the point where a business owner or manager can not continue to kick the cybersecurity can down the road. Cyber-criminal gangs are out in force with expert staff and serious tools at their disposal. They are after your customer records including but not limited to credit card information, and employee records, and and the passwords to and balances of your banking and other financial accounts. Can your business really afford to be parting with any of this information? Not really.
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About the Author:
I am a cybersecurity and IT instructor, cybersecurity analyst, pen-tester, trainer, and speaker. I am an owner of the WyzCo Group Inc. In addition to consulting on security products and services, I also conduct security audits, compliance audits, vulnerability assessments and penetration tests. I also teach Cybersecurity Awareness Training classes. I work as an information technology and cybersecurity instructor for several training and certification organizations. I have worked in corporate, military, government, and workforce development training environments I am a frequent speaker at professional conferences such as the Minnesota Bloggers Conference, Secure360 Security Conference in 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, the (ISC)2 World Congress 2016, and the ISSA International Conference 2017, and many local community organizations, including Chambers of Commerce, SCORE, and several school districts. I have been blogging on cybersecurity since 2006 at http://wyzguyscybersecurity.com