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In the first quarter of 2024, organizations faced an average of 1,308 cyberattacks per week, up 28% from the previous quarter and 5% from the previous year. And what's even more worrying, cybercrime losses reached $12.8 billion in 2023 and are expected to reach $23.84 trillion by 2027.
There is no doubt that securing your business in today’s digital business landscape is not just about protecting against cyber threats – it’s about resilience.
You can always fall for the latest threats as cybercriminals become more sophisticated at penetrating corporate networks, so you need a more robust cybersecurity plan backed by cyber resilience that goes beyond the traditional cybersecurity strategy.
Cyber resilience is not a buzzword, but a necessity and a proactive approach that goes beyond traditional security to ensure your organization can withstand and recover from potential threats without significantly impacting your business.
In short, cyber resilience is about building walls of protection and having the resilience to come back stronger.
Let's find out why building resilience should be a top priority for organizations to ensure continuity and future success in the ever-growing cybersecurity landscape.
Related: There's no room for error in cybersecurity – How to build a strong online defense through everyday habits
Why your company needs cyber resilience
Cyber resilience is your organization's ability to prevent, survive, and recover smoothly from various cybersecurity incidents. Cyber resilience isn't about preventing cyberattacks—it's about making sure your organization can recover quickly and keep operating after an incident.
No one can predict the next threat to your business and your customers, especially in an era where machine learning and artificial intelligence have broadened horizons and increased threat vectors.
For this reason, a robust incident response plan is undoubtedly a must for organizations looking to re-engineer their cybersecurity posture.
Remember, a cybersecurity strategy is useless without a robust incident response plan, as cybercriminals are already finding new ways to target end users and customers, exploit their personal information, and gain access to sensitive business details.
On the other hand, cyber resilience not only ensures strong cybersecurity against immediate threats but also ultimately mitigates long-term costs. Therefore, investing in cyber resilience would surely save your business from financial ruin and ensure smooth business operations.
Now that we've learned about cyber resilience and its importance, let's highlight how you can incorporate it into your business.
Related: 3 Reasons to Improve Your Cybersecurity Protocols in 2024
Is your organization really protected?
Most companies confuse cyber resilience with cyber security. However, they are quite different and have their own meanings at different levels.
It's important to protect your business from modern threats, but it's also important to prepare for the worst. For example, you need to have a plan in place to deal with a data or privacy breach.
If you want to protect your business from the latest threats, your cybersecurity must include a comprehensive cyber resilience checklist.
Whether it's regular audits, employee training, or advanced threat detection through technology, you must always be prepared for any cyber incident.
Your cybersecurity checklist to increase your cyber resilience
1. Regular safety checks
Scheduled audits are critical to uncovering potential threats and vulnerabilities before cybercriminals can exploit them. Addressing issues early allows you to create a solid worst-case plan and emerge stronger.
Here's what you can do:
- Check for outdated software: It is important to check and update your defense software and firewalls, as outdated software is more vulnerable to ransomware attacks and other threats.
- Incident Response Drill: Organizing an incident response drill will help you identify gaps in your communication protocol and ultimately overcome the delayed response time when a cyberattack occurs. Therefore, scheduling quarterly incident response drills after the security audit is completed is crucial.
- Engage outside experts: Bringing in outside cybersecurity experts can provide an unbiased assessment of your security measures and help create a robust cyber resilience program. Experts can uncover vulnerabilities that your internal teams may miss and help create an action plan accordingly.
2. Strengthen your human firewall through employee training and awareness programs
Human error leads to cybersecurity breaches. To build cyber resilience, you need to ensure your employees are well trained to deal with all vulnerabilities.
- Regular Training: Regular training and education on the latest threat vectors and best practices for your employees is essential. Using real-world scenarios to illustrate various threats and the corresponding responses would protect your organization from potential threats and minimize losses in case of an unforeseen event.
- Phishing simulations: Conducting phishing simulations to test your employees' ability to detect and respond to phishing attacks is critical to protecting sensitive information. Using the results to identify areas for improvement helps tailor training to minimize human error.
- Clear policies and procedures: Establishing clear cybersecurity procedures and policies within your organization is critical to building resilience. Make sure the policies are easily accessible and understood by everyone in the organization.
3. Building a robust incident response team is your first line of defense
A dedicated incident response team is all you need to respond quickly and effectively to a cybersecurity incident. This will help minimize the impact and result in less financial and reputational loss.
- Define roles and responsibilities: You must clearly define the roles and responsibilities for each team member, regardless of their job title and experience. It is critical to ensure that everyone knows their duties and responsibilities immediately when an incident and situation occurs.
- Leverage the power of modern tools and technologies: By using threat intelligence tools, data encryption, multi-factor authentication (MFA) and zero-trust architecture, you can strengthen your entire cybersecurity resilience program.
- Continuous improvement: Conduct a thorough review after each exercise and incident to identify areas for improvement. This will allow you to continually update your incident response plan based on the latest learnings.
Final thoughts
In today’s digital business landscape, increasing cyber threats and the sophistication of cyber criminals require next-level security – cyber resilience.
Cyber resilience is an important strategy for organizations to ensure that they remain operational in the event of a cyber incident and can contain a breach quickly and without financial and reputational loss.
Therefore, improving cyber resilience should not be a luxury; it must be an essential pillar of your cybersecurity foundation.
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