There aren’t many businesses around today that don’t need to consider cyber safety measures; whether you’re a sole trader just starting out, or a multinational business, you need to be aware of, protect against, and prepare for, the risks. In this article we’ll outline the cyber safety measures that every business should implement.
Understanding the importance of cyber safety
To implement a robust set of measures, you first need to understand why cyber safety needs to be a priority for your business.
To put it simply, any data you collect needs to be protected from theft and damage, to ensure that you can maintain the trust your customers place in you, and also ensure that assets, both physical and financial, are kept under lock and key.
Cyber attacks on your business could mean:
Data breaches and loss of sensitive information
This could put your customers at risk (and cost you their trust), and also land you with a fine under GDPR legislation.
Financial implications
This could be money stolen from your accounts, increased insurance premiums, the cost of recovering your losses, and/or a loss of business caused by an inability to carry out client or customer work, or fulfil orders, due to compromised computer systems.
Legal and compliance issues
Depending on the way in which your systems were attacked, there could be legal implications, including breach of contract issues.
It makes sense, then, that the benefits of robust cyber security include the enhanced trust customers can place in you, the protection of a business reputation that would be almost impossible to build up again, and the prevention of financial losses that could leave you high and dry.
Developing a comprehensive cyber security plan
So, we know why it’s important to prevent potentially catastrophic cyber attacks, but how do you go about developing a plan to do just that?
The only way is to commit to a solid plan and develop one that is well-structured and tailored to the kind of work that you do. Take the time to decide on the following, as they are key components of a strong cyber security plan:
- Cyber policies and procedures
- Roles and responsibilities
- Incident response plans
In order to nail down all of this, it’s recommended you start by conducting a risk assessment to identify risks and vulnerabilities and involve employees in the planning just in case they can shed light on something you may have missed. The plan should be regularly reviewed and updated – you don’t need telling that technology is constantly evolving!
Understanding Cyber Essentials
All this is quite a big undertaking for even the biggest and most established businesses, which is why Cyber Essentials was created to provide a framework that allows businesses to be assessed on their preparedness in the event of a cyber attack.
As a UK Government standard, Cyber Essentials helps you guard your business and valuable data against the most common cyber threats, and demonstrates that you are aware of, and are committed to tackling, cyber security. If you’re in the public sector or have local authority contracts, Cyber Essentials is actually a mandatory requirement.
To achieve Cyber Essentials certification, you’ll need to assess your current security measures, implement required controls, and undergo the official certification assessment. We’d strongly advise engaging with professional cyber security experts who can support, advise, assess, and certify your business for ultimate peace of mind.
Cyber security training and education
When it comes to the protection of data, the whole business needs to be on board, which means that employees should be trained in cyber security so that they know how to keep data safe, and spot anything that’s not quite right. Types of cyber security training include:
- General awareness training
- Phishing and social engineering prevention
- Data protection and privacy
Like all things cyber security, this should be an ongoing and evolving effort, which includes regular refresher courses, and assessments to ensure that the materials covered have been understood.
Implementing strong access controls
It’s no good going to all this trouble and then installing the equivalent of a flimsy front door on the whole thing; your access controls need to be Fort Knox style. This means using multi-factor authentication (MFA), and regularly reviewing and updating access permissions. You should keep an inventory of all user accounts, monitor access logs, and, of course, enforce strong password policies.
Ensuring data protection and backup
In short, your data needs looking after, both in digital transit, and in the event of loss. This includes encrypting data, both when it’s not being used, and ‘in transit’ (for example, during transactions), implementing data loss prevention solutions, and regularly backing up and updating your software.
Regarding backups, these should be regularly scheduled, and ideally stored offsite; do take the time to test the backup and recovery process too, just in case you do need to use it. You’d want to get back up and running again sharpish!
Implementing incident response plans
As much as we’re doing our best to prevent it, we can’t ever rule out the worst happening, so businesses should be prepared with a strategy for getting through a cyber incident. This includes developing predefined incident types and their associated severity, assigning response teams to these incidents and outlining what their responsibility would be, and deciding on how communication will continue during an incident (which will likely take down your usual channels).
Just like those backups, it’s best to do a simulation to identify any holes in your plan.
To conclude
Prioritising cyber security for your business is no longer optional; it’s expected. The continuous nature of the threats posed by technology misuse mean that your cyber safety measures will always be something of a work in progress, but fundamentals like Cyber Essentials can help you on your way to tightening up your protection.
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