Every day, we hear news about cyber attacks affecting businesses large and small. From phishing to smishing and much more, cyber-attacks have increased in frequency, making them a problem that can no longer be ignored.
The attacks are also becoming more sophisticated by the day, making it harder to catch up in terms of controlling and stopping them altogether. This is where a good cyber security strategy comes in.
The first step is to understand and differentiate cyber resilience vs cyber security. Below, we break this down and provide a number of other tips to help you develop a robust cyber security strategy for your business.
- Know the Difference Between Cyber Resilience and cyber security
Before we get into the nuts and bolts of making your business more resilient to cyber-attacks, we must understand what we’re dealing with here. As such, we’re going to start with a definition of cyber security and what makes it unique from cyber resilience.
Cyber security is all about protection against attempted attacks on a company’s network, data, and information systems. Meanwhile, cyber resilience refers to the company’s reaction and recovery from cyber-attacks.
In short, cyber security is proactive, while cyber resilience is reactive.
- Understand Business Risks
There are many risks involved in running a business, and identifying these risks is vital when forming a cyber security strategy. The process of doing this is called a “cyber security risk assessment,” and its purpose is to give you a comprehensive view of your business’s risks and how to solve them.
This assessment will help you understand how resilient your current procedures and policies are. It’s also important to understand the risks presented by third parties. Taking this proactive approach is the first step to developing a cyber-resilient company.
- Align Your Business Goals with Your Cyber Security Strategy
Your cyber security team should be able to align your business goals with your cyber security strategy. Doing so will help you determine your tolerance for business-related risks. Risk appetite and risk tolerance show how much risk business owners are willing to take; when that is understood, it’s much easier to make decisions.
Once you’ve aligned your business goals to your cyber security goals, your company can move forward knowing there’s a fall-back strategy should anything unexpected happen.
- Determine a Cyber Security Framework
A cyber security framework consists of the guidelines and practices for managing your company’s cyber security risks. You need to choose a framework that will assist in creating the most effective cyber security strategy for your business while adhering to your industry’s regulatory frameworks. Following these regulations should help you avoid fines and penalties related to the sector your business belongs to in the industry.
The goal is to harmonize the control framework by controlling data in the central repository and consolidating compliance. Achieving these outcomes will help you and the business avoid data breaches and hefty fines.
- Re-examine Existing Security Policies
Re-examining your policies is essential when creating a cyber security strategy, as you want to ensure that they’re up-to-date and resilient enough to cover any rising cyber threads. These policies should explain your company’s plan to protect both its physical assets and digitally stored information. Whether you store data on-site, in the cloud, or both, it’s crucial to have security policies governing your actions.
Keep in mind that as technology and threats evolve, security policies must change, and your documents may need to be updated. Thankfully, if you follow the steps outlined above, you and your employees should have a clearer idea of what you need to do to ensure your business remains safe, resilient, and secure.
