"Are You a CEO Interested in a Feature Interview?"
All Interviews are 100% FREE of Charge
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
In the first quarter of 2024, organizations will face an average of 1,308 cyber attacks per week, up 28% from the previous quarter and 5% year-over-year. Even more worrying, losses from cybercrime will increase $12.8 billion in 2023 It is expected to reach $23.84 trillion by 2027.
Protecting your business in today’s digital business environment is not just about protecting against cyber threats, it’s also about resilience.
Cybercriminals are becoming increasingly sophisticated while infiltrating business networks, so you are constantly falling prey to the latest threats. This calls for a more robust cybersecurity plan backed by cyber resilience that goes beyond traditional cybersecurity strategies.
Cyber resilience is not a buzzword. It is a necessary, preventative approach that goes beyond traditional security, enabling organizations to withstand and recover from potential threats without significant impact to their business.
Simply put, cyber resilience is about building a defense and having the resilience to bounce back stronger.
Let’s look at why embracing resilience should be a top priority for businesses to ensure continuity and future success in an ever-expanding cybersecurity landscape.
Related: There’s no room for mistakes in cybersecurity — how to build a strong online defense through everyday habits
Why your business needs cyber resilience
Cyber resilience is the ability of an organization to prevent, withstand, and recover smoothly from a range of cyber security incidents. Cyber resilience is not about preventing cyber attacks, but about enabling an organization to recover quickly and continue operations after an incident occurs.
No one can predict the next threat to their organization or their customers, especially in an era where machine learning and artificial intelligence are broadening horizons and multiplying threat vectors.
So, there is no doubt that a strong incident response plan is the need of the hour for any business looking to revamp its cybersecurity posture.
Remember, a cybersecurity strategy without a robust incident response plan is useless because cybercriminals are already looking. New ways to target end users and customers To misuse your personal information and access sensitive business details.
Cyber resilience, on the other hand, not only ensures rigorous cyber security against immediate threats but also ultimately mitigates long-term costs. Hence, investing in cyber resilience can reliably protect your business from financial ruin and ensure smooth continuity.
Now that we have learned about cyber resilience and its importance, let us now highlight how you can incorporate it into your business.
Related: 3 Reasons to Strengthen Your Cybersecurity Protocols in 2024
Is your organization truly protected?
Most businesses confuse cyber resilience with cybersecurity, but the two are very different and each has different levels of importance.
Protecting your organization from the latest threats is important, but it’s also important to prepare for the worst – for example, you need a plan for dealing with a data or privacy breach.
If you want to protect your organization from modern threats, your cybersecurity needs to include a comprehensive cyber resilience checklist.
Whether it’s through regular audits, employee training, or using technology to detect advanced threats, you need to be constantly prepared to deal with any cyber incident.
Strengthen your cyber resilience with a cybersecurity checklist
1. Regular Security Audits
Regular audits are essential to uncovering potential threats and vulnerabilities before cybercriminals can exploit them. Addressing issues well in advance allows you to have a solid plan in place for worst-case scenarios and bounce back stronger.
You can:
- Finding old software: It’s important to check and update your defensive software and firewalls, as outdated software leaves you more susceptible to ransomware attacks and other threats.
- Incident response training: Organizing incident response drills will help identify gaps in communication protocols and ultimately overcome delays in response time during a cyber attack. Hence, once you have completed your security audit, it is important to schedule incident response drills on a quarterly basis.
- Leverage third-party expertise: Involving third-party cybersecurity experts provides an unbiased assessment of your security measures and helps you create a strong cyber resilience program. Experts can uncover vulnerabilities that your in-house team may have overlooked and help you develop a response plan accordingly.
2. Strengthen your human firewall through employee training and awareness programs
Human error leads to cybersecurity breaches, and making sure your employees are adequately trained to address any vulnerabilities is essential to building cyber resilience.
- Regular training sessions: Regularly training and updating employees on the latest threat vectors and best practices is essential. Using real-life scenarios to explain various threats and their responses can help protect your organization from potential threats and minimize losses in the event of an unexpected event.
- Fishing Simulation: Conducting phishing simulations to test your employees’ ability to recognize and respond to phishing attacks is critical to protecting sensitive information. Using the results to identify areas of improvement, you can customize training to minimize human error.
- Clear policies and procedures: Establishing clear cybersecurity procedures and policies within your organization is essential to building resilience. Make sure your policies are easily accessible and understandable to everyone in your organization.
3. Building a strong incident response team is your first line of defense
A dedicated incident response team is needed to ensure a fast and effective response in the event of a cybersecurity incident, minimizing the impact and reducing financial and reputational losses.
- Define roles and responsibilities. Roles and responsibilities of all team members should be clearly defined, regardless of job title or experience. It is important that when an incident or situation occurs, everyone quickly understands their duties and responsibilities.
- Unlock the potential of the latest tools and technologies. Using threat intelligence tools, data encryption, multi-factor authentication (MFA), and zero trust architectures can strengthen your overall cybersecurity resilience program.
- Continuous improvement: We conduct thorough reviews after every exercise and incident to identify areas for improvement, allowing us to continually update our incident response plan based on the latest findings.
Final thoughts
In today’s digital business environment, increasing cyber threats and the sophistication of cybercriminals call for the next level of security: cyber resilience.
Cyber resilience is a key strategy for businesses to ensure they can continue operations in the event of a cyber incident and be able to quickly contain a breach without financial or reputational loss.
Therefore, implementing cyber resilience is not a luxury but must be a critical pillar of your cybersecurity foundation.