Top 10 Ways to Keep Your Digital Solutions Safe from Cybersecurity Breaches

With rapid digital transformation and exponential rise in mobile devices comes the risk of privacy. The term cybersecurity in today’s day and age refers mostly refers to the practice of defending mobile devices and other electronic devices which might be vulnerable to attackers or hackers from data leakage or malware attacks. According to a University of Maryland study, “there is a hacker attack every 39 seconds” and “95% of breached records came from only three industries - government, retail, and technology”. 

What is cybersecurity and how is it important?

Mobile app development should be planned by organizations, keeping in mind the best practices and cybersecurity frameworks. Organizations should invest more into their cybersecurity divisions. Cybersecurity in this digital age can be divided into – 

• Network Security - This helps in protecting our computer systems from malware attacks, unauthorized access by the implementation of good cybersecurity policies and practices.
• Information Security – Infosec forms a part of information risk management and deals with the prevention and safeguarding of information stored in company servers.
• Application Security – This refers to security measures that are taken on the application level so that the information provided by users on different apps is safe and secure.
• Operational Security – Op-sec helps organizations to determine the measures which have to be adopted to secure the information assets of an organization.

Cybersecurity threats can be divided into many types and if not taken care of by organizations will greatly make them vulnerable to these threats. Unpreparedness to these threats may affect their business continuity and disaster recovery in case of an attack. Here are some of the common cybersecurity threats that users and organizations must be aware of – 

Phishing 

Denial of Service (DoS)

Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS)

Malware 

Ransomware 

Adware

Spyware

Brute force Attacks

SQL Injection

Botnets

APT (Advanced Persistent Threats)

Trojan Horse

How to prevent cybersecurity attacks and why is it important?

According to an Accenture study, “the average cost of cybercrime for an organization has increased by $1.4 million over the last year to $13.0 million and the average number of data breaches rose by 11% to 145”. It shows with the rising threat of cybersecurity attacks organizations have started realizing the potential of having a cybersecurity framework to protect against data breaches, information leakage, and intellectual property.

Here are 10 ways in which your organization can be prepared against cybersecurity threats –

Regular internal cybersecurity assessments and audits

The organization must perform regular cybersecurity audits through their white hacker cybersecurity teams to check and test the organizational cybersecurity vulnerabilities within the organization’s systems.

Implementation of proper training and awareness in the workforce 

Employees are susceptible to attacks like phishing attacks due to suspicious emails or phone calls or other social engineering attacks. Employees having weak passwords can be a gateway for attackers to enter into a company’s systems and networks.

Systems and software must be up to date

Softwares with the latest versions which have the latest security patches are a must for an organization’s systems as the old apps may be vulnerable to zero-day exploits. Anti-virus updates should also be updated frequently along with frequent routine checks.

Implementation of firewalls and use of VPN in case of remote access

Due to the global pandemic, the workforce is accessing the organization’s systems from remote locations, thus, it is very essential for organizations to implement Virtual private networks (VPN), so that the organization’s data is secure and people who are accessing it are trustable.

Daily backup of important data

In case of a cyberattack, an organization should be capable to recover the lost data which will help in quicker business continuity. The organization must backup the customer and organizational data over the cloud so that in case of information stealing or data leakage, the organization can recover back the data quickly.  

Robust security in organization LAN and Wi-Fi networks

Wi-Fi and LAN networks should be highly secure. If an attacker gains access over a Wi-Fi network, then all the employees and devices who are under the network are prone to cybersecurity threats such as SQL injection or trojan horse which can affect the devices directly.

Hierarchical Access Management for the workforce

Organisation’s sensitive data should be accessible to top-level management and decision-making data to the top and middle-level management. This hierarchy in access management will help organizations make their data more secure. 

Personal account provision to each staff

Every employee must be provided with separate email IDs for every application rather than having one login for multiple users which exposes multiple employees to one attack. It improves both security and usability for the employees and the organization as a whole. 

Control over physical access to organization’s systems

Organizations need to enhance security in their physical environment. Attackers may disguise as visitors to gain access to login credentials of the employees, trade secrets of the organization, and may get access to infrastructure schematics. Thus, internal resources must be protected from external personnel.

Regular changing of passwords

Employees should be advised to change their passwords frequently so that it is difficult for attackers to predict passwords by implementing brute force attacks or man-in-the-middle attacks, thus, securing the organization's systems.