Action plan to reduce the threat of cyber risk

Protecting an organization against cyber threats is often viewed as an overly complicated and highly technical challenge. While that is often the case and there are important technical aspects of cybersecurity defenses that organizations must have in place to have a comprehensive defense against attacks, the most impactful defenses are simply day-to-day actions and general awareness.

There are eight steps your organization can take to reduce the chances for threat actors to exploit the human errors that exist within your digital environment.

1. Know the environment – Organizations should understand where they have protective measures in place and what vulnerabilities are associated with those measures. Running vulnerability scans regularly is a great way to understand whether a company is susceptible to potential threats.
2. Keep backups safe – If a threat is interfering with an organization’s system and attempting to hold them for ransomware, having a secure backup prevents the threat from escalating and allows the company to recover its environment effectively.
3. Implement a patch management program – Companies should patch their vulnerabilities and be aware of where vulnerabilities remain unpatched. Don’t allow decisions to leave something unpatched to be made in isolation. Instead, involve the entire organization as opposed to a singular department so there is perspective on how that decision will threaten the organization as a whole.
4. Build a secure aware culture – Information comes from the top. An organization should ensure everyone, from board members to the lowest-level employees, stays well informed about existing cyber threats and takes necessary steps to safeguard themselves and the organization. This education is most effectively reinforced through a security awareness program that educates the workforce on an ongoing basis, instilling best practices like not writing credentials underneath their keyboard, how to avoid clicking on phishing links, not sharing information with people or using shared accounts.