Cyber threats are no joke. They are increasing exponentially every year, and as technology becomes more widely accepted in the workplace, the amount of cyberattacks is slated to only go up.
In a world where massive data breaches happen all too often and cost millions of dollars and months of recovery time, you can only prepare for the worst.
There are a few steps your security team can take to bolster your cybersecurity and help you map a path to greater, more effective cyber threat management.
Create a Plan of Action
Every business should have a plan of action for major disasters, and a data breach is no different. Hopefully, you will never have to experience a devastating data breach, which can take a major toll on your business, both emotionally and financially, but it is always best to be prepared for a worst-case scenario. Once a data breach is detected, a feat that may take upwards of months, you need a plan of action in order to deal with it fast.
Designated incident response teams decrease the cost of a data breach by around $14 per leaked or compromised file. Having a specially trained team sitting at the ready to deal with any threats that arise, constantly monitoring the safety of your files, sounds like a good plan of action.
One thing the security team will need to figure out is when to make the information known. If you have clients with compromised information that was stored in your database, you will have to let them know that their sensitive data has been compromised. From there, your security team will have to deal with the incident. Think of the steps you are going to take before you encounter a problem. Plan them out now, and you will have less to worry about later should an attack occur.
For your plan to run smoothly, you want to set out clear guidelines explaining which employees are allowed to access what data. A study found that 21% of all folders were open to every employee with no regard for their authorization, level of trustworthiness, title, or anything else. However, employees should not have authorization to anything outside of what directly affects them or is in their job description. Having files open to all employees, and even some to the public, invites danger in and dances a fine line of falling prey to a data breach.
Educate Your Employees on Cybersecurity
Not every employee in your company or volunteer in your organization is going to know the ins and outs of cybersecurity and cyber threat management. As their leader, it is your job to help them understand what they do not know. Your interference—even so much as directing them on the right path to conduct their own research—could make a world of difference to the fate of your company.
The greatest risk to cybersecurity is human error. A leading cause of all data breaches lies in information being leaked accidentally by an employee. To prevent circumstances like these from happening, a security team could take it upon themselves to teach other employees just how important cyber threat management is and how they can help, even if they have no prior knowledge.
Your employees should work together like a well-oiled machine. If the security team can come to the aid of employees who are not educated on cyber threat management, you will have a system that is stronger than before.
Stay Up to Date on the Latest Breakthroughs
Technology and the world today are both changing rapidly. As hackers are becoming more inventive with their strategies to steal your precious information, others are working on ways to fight back and protect their data from any leaks and data breaches. New, inventive technology is coming out continually, and at the same time, insightful ways to protect yourself and your company or organization from a data breach are becoming more widespread public knowledge—and you need to know what these new strategies to defend yourself and your business are to take advantage of them.
Your security team should remain vigilant for any new updates and breakthroughs, good or bad, on the cybersecurity and cyber threat management front. If a new data breach headlines the news, the security team should take note—especially, if it affected a business or organization similar to yours. Always be on the hunt for new, cutting-edge technology that could change the course of cybersecurity. To plan ahead is to prepare for a disaster and to limit the effects to the minimum amount of damage possible. You could be the first success story for that particular strategy.
Rely on Wickr to Keep Your Information Secure
The average cost of a data breach is about $3.92 million. That kind of money is not something that can just be coughed up. Any business would take a hit trying to build themselves back up in terms of security and public trust, especially small businesses that may not generate as much capital.
Wickr exists to strengthen the security of your important documents and files, as well as to keep secret employee-only information under lock and key so that your private data does not become public knowledge.
As the only enterprise-grade, security-first SaaS collaboration space out there, Wickr offers everything that you would expect from a normal messaging system, conveniently on your desktop computer, tablet, or smartphone. You can send and receive texts, images, files, calls, and so much more. Additionally, files can be equipped with ephemerality, meaning they can disappear after the intended recipient has viewed them, so they do not linger around and become liabilities that may be lost to potential data breaches.
Wickr offers a highly customizable platform that automatically encrypts your data as soon as you put it out there, with no action from you needed. It is the perfect collaboration space for a team of any size, whether your business is big or small or even just you—Wickr has something for everyone.
Feel safe and at ease with Wickr’s secure messaging platform.