How big a role does cybersecurity actually have in the modern business world? The truth is, not a lot of companies will put it as their number one priority, nor, frankly, they should do. Ensuring continuous business operation is what’s truly important, and it wouldn’t be wise to impair that in favor of investing in security solutions, or conducting thorough investigations of every little incident and vulnerability.
However, this doesn’t mean that cybersecurity does not matter at all. In fact, many companies, both small and large, often have this false sense of security with regards to cybercrime. They often don’t realize just how much damage a single data breach can do: legal troubles, astronomical remediation fees, huge reputation hit, negative PR and loss of clientele – these are the things that many companies will have to deal with in case of a cybersecurity breach.
When it comes to small firms, many of them risk going out of business as a result of insufficient cybersecurity.
While there is probably not a single company on the market that ignores security completely, underestimating the level of danger is a principle business mistake that can lead to cybersecurity risks piling up until eventually a devastating breach will happen. Ultimately, this approach results in committing a number of cybersecurity mistakes that can kill your business.
Mistake 1: Inadequate security strategy
Careful strategy is the key component of effective cybersecurity: it allows the set-up of necessary processes for detecting and investigating critical security events. Thorough risk assessment and smart prioritization are two main elements that constitute a backbone of a successful security strategy.
Sadly, many companies base their cybersecurity activities primarily on such things as compliance requirements, IT staff recommendations, or even conventional wisdom, ultimately failing to produce a proper holistic security strategy that would fit the company needs. As a result, they often lack basic precautions, such as a formal security policy and remediation plan, not to mention long-term cybersecurity goals.
In order to avoid this and create a foundation for strong and reliable security for years to come, make sure that you put a thorough and detailed security strategy in place, and make sure that it takes specifics of your company into account. There are several practices that you can follow to make this task easier and make your results more effective:
Assess risks: Risk assessment will allow your company to check the current state of your security and will give you the necessary details on how to proceed with implementing the next security measures.
Prioritize: Not every vulnerability is a major one. Security is a continuous process and it is very important to learn to prioritize certain things over other. This is where risk assessment shines. You will know what parts are the most vulnerable and will be able to assign a higher priority to covering those parts.
Stay realistic. Make sure that any plans and measures that you put in place are actually practical and can be executed. Formulate security policies and incident response plans and make sure that there are people, who know and understand them and can enforce or execute them when needed.
Mistake 2: Thinking that money is everything
Regardless of what type of employee monitoring solution you pick, it will not be able to fully mitigate all insider threats by itself. Same goes for anti-virus and firewalls and all the other types of cybersecurity software out there.
Many large companies think that buying the latest and greatest security software is enough to ensure reliable protection of their data, when in fact this is not the case. Other factors, such as proper security strategy, clear and effective security policy and high level of employee awareness can be just as important.
The bottom line is if you don’t develop a proper security strategy, don’t let your security personnel do their job and enforce the necessary rules and regulations, investing and relying on the most expensive software will probably not save you. At the same time, if your company is not willing to invest a lot in cybersecurity, don’t panic. Look for a solution that works for you and work on enforcing security policies and employee awareness. All of this will allow you to greatly increase the reliability and effectiveness of your cybersecurity.
Mistake 3: Relegating cybersecurity to an IT problem
Another IT security mistake that business owners make is to think that cybersecurity is an issue exclusive to your IT department. This approach is very dangerous, as it takes an otherwise global problem that affects the whole company and transfers all the blame and responsibility for it on a small group of people with IT security jobs. They do not often don’t have the budget to get the necessary tools, nor an authority to enforce the rules needed to establish a reliable security.
In fact, the root cause of a majority of cybersecurity issues lies in inadvertent mistakes, failure to comply with company security policies, and otherwise lack of employee awareness when it comes to cybersecurity. Therefore, it is very important to involve your whole company in the process of ensuring that your most sensitive data is safe.
Underestimating the susceptibility or your organization to cybersecurity breaches and the damage they would do to your business is probably the biggest security mistake you can commit. It is important to thoroughly and constantly keep working to strengthen your protection from both outsider and insider threats, and make sure that your valuable data will not be used against you.