Cybersecurity is a crucial, but often sadly overlooked area in business, until it’s too late. In 2023 alone, 2,365 major cyber-attacks affected well over 300 million people worldwide, and those are just the major ones.
It’s important to know how to safeguard your business with the right cybersecurity and the ideal service provider. But it’s probably helpful to first understand what cybersecurity is and the many elements that go into keeping you and your employees safe online.
This article will help do just that.
The Holistic Service
What’s important to know from the start is that cybersecurity doesn’t refer to one area or method of keeping your business safe online. Rather it’s a whole range of practices, technological solutions, and processes that protect your network and systems from harmful outside attacks.
In a post-pandemic landscape, as more and more businesses turn to online spaces, more valuable data is online, which opens itself to risks. Attackers are constantly looking for ways to bypass security and obtain access to this data through increasingly sophisticated memes. As these attacks become more advanced, so cybersecurity evolves to fight them. Think of it as an arms race of sorts.
The right cybersecurity service is a holistic approach to safety; one that’s constantly evolving and changing to protect your networks, systems, and data from infiltration and loss.
The Many Types of Cybersecurity
Being such a dense service, there are too many facets of cybersecurity to rattle off here, but there are some major disciplines that a service may follow:
Network Security
Most devices and networks are nearly permanently connected to the online world, which leaves them open to infiltration and attack. Even devices as innocuous as an office printer can become an infiltration point if not properly secured.
Network security aims to catch and prevent these attacks before they even begin. It’s important to control who has access to what and ensure that proper permissions are in place. Sometimes employees may compromise a system without fully being aware. It’s important to have the right measures in place, in addition to staff education. Some solutions include:
- Data Loss Prevention (DLP)
- Intrusion Prevention Systems (IPS)
- Identity Access Management (IAM)
- Firewalls and Network Access Controls (NAC)
- Antivirus software
- Proactive technologies that analyze and hunt for threats
Cloud Security
Cloud computing has been an area that has seen massive growth in the past few years. Keeping all this online data secured is of paramount concern. Regulatory compliance also means that businesses need to ensure they are in line with data protection mandates like the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) and create policies to mitigate risk and prevent infiltrations like DDoS attacks.
What makes cloud security so challenging is that it has to protect not only the network, but the systems, and devices connected to it. For this reason, many companies outsource their cloud security to trusted professionals.
Mobile Security
Speaking of connected devices, mobile devices are being used more and more to access business data. What’s more, these devices are often personal to employees and don’t have the benefit of office and network security that you’d have with in-house machines. Mobile devices are vulnerable to phishing, malware, and regular theft that can wreak havoc on an unprotected network.
It’s mobile security’s job to keep the personal and corporate data on these devices protected, and safe from online and offline interference.
Identity Management and Data Security
You’ve probably encountered two-factor authentication in one of the online services you use. This is a form of identity management that keeps your data safe. Ensuring the legitimacy and proper storage of online profiles goes a long way to keeping an entire network secure. Furthermore, controlling which profiles have access to certain systems is crucial to limiting threats and unintentional data compromise.
Application Security
Applications are constantly connected to the online world and have to accommodate any number of different devices at a time. Any flaws in coding and security can leave countless devices vulnerable. An application security service focuses on the coding, app architecture, input, and authentication areas of the app. API keys are one form of application security that offers data without compromising security.
Zero-Trust
Employees, intentionally or by accident, can often be a major weak point in cybersecurity. This is also in addition to all other aspects of security outside the organization. Rather than perimeter security, most practices have adopted a zero-trust approach to cybersecurity. Essentially, everything can be a threat and should be treated as such.
Zero-trust micro-segment data and access to it, making the entire system and network more secure. This involves processes like securing user end-point devices (from smartphones to PCs) with technologies like anti-phishing and multi-step authentication.
Continuity Planning
Of course, even the best-laid plans can go to waste and a network can be compromised despite the proper procedures being put in place. What’s vital in these cases is to plan for disaster and have a clear outline of what to do next.
Business continuity planning is often devised internally to respond to disasters, natural or otherwise, but can also be useful for cyber-attacks. It typically prioritizes restoring critical systems and the steps for recovery to be followed. Every business should have one in place but hopefully never need to use it.
User Education
It pays to be proactive with cybersecurity, and the best way to do that is to educate the most vulnerable parts of any system or network, its human users. Employees need to be properly educated on the dos and don’ts of keeping a business safe from cyberattacks.
This ranges from basic awareness training on ransomware, malware, phishing, and many other types of data infiltration, to more advanced knowledge of best practices and continuity procedures.
Cybersecurity Matters
No matter what forms your cybersecurity procedures take, you should always have some strategy implemented. Not every business is the same and every cybersecurity solution will be different. It may seem daunting, but with the right experts, you can rest assured your infrastructure is safe.
That’s where we at Docutrend, with our range of services network services, can make life easier. Our 20 years of experience make us industry leaders in modern office and workforce technology. Let our expertise in cybersecurity protect your business and what really matters. If you’re in the New York, Totowa, Cherry Hill, Edison, or Ft. Washington area, why not contact us today?