Why is a Security Strategy Important?
Technology Security measures are continuously improving. As more integrations, components, and threats surface, it is essential to your business to stay ten steps ahead. Having a security strategy in place is a necessary part of every organization’s responsibility to due diligence. Taking security seriously is empowering and gives your organization peace of mind.
In today’s world, cybersecurity threats are abundant and it’s not a matter of if but when. There are steps you can take to prevent and respond to a security threat that protects your data and minimizes the effects of a security breach. Below, we’ll detail the key components you should include in your organization’s 2022 security strategy.
Vital components of an effective security strategy
1. Prevention
At its core, an accurate cyber security strategy centers around prevention. Internal IT staff and stakeholders should work to create a strategy that focuses heavily on prevention. Ensuring that data is stored securely, redundant or irrelevant data and documentation is destroyed, and all policies and procedures are up to date are key steps in reducing the likelihood of a security breach occurring.
With the move to remote work and the jump in the number of employees that work from home, there have been new challenges in securing remote access to corporate resources. With the rise of offsite employees becoming the norm, lack of a proper security strategy can lead to your organization becoming an ideal target for hacking ploys and cyber-attacks.
One factor that often goes overlooked is the importance of role assignments in your current and future software systems. As companies are moving forward with their IT transformations and upgrading their current systems, there has been a focus on enhancing the security and capabilities of their systems so that they’re getting the most quantitative and qualitative ROI out of their investment. By truly understanding how people within the organization use their systems and adapting the current approach, you can help close any potential security gaps.
When granting employees access to your IT system, creating and maintaining role assignments that correspond with the specific data and controls needed to effectively work is a critical step in preventing a security breach. If moving to a new system, streamlining, adapting, and even reducing existing role assignments to be a better fit for your new system should be a consideration Consolidating user roles reduces the likelihood that employees do not have access to personally identifiable information (PII) if it is not a requirement for their immediate work.
Training is a key part of prevention as well. Beyond training employees to spot phishing and suspicious malware attempts online, educating your workforce on the importance of adhering to internal policies and procedures that are present to protect sensitive data is key.
Gartner recently updated their cloud security assessment and concluded that by the year 2025, 99% of failures in cloud security will be a result of security issues on the customer side. When migrating to a new system, training should be given early and often to prepare users before Go-Live to ensure comprehension.
2. Detection
One of the most critical aspects to your security strategy will be detection of threats, as the increase in the depth of an attack on your systems will permeate if action is not taken to remove the threat. While it is difficult to uncover how a breach occurred, solving this will allow you to take appropriate action, minimize damage, and eventually take steps to prevent a future breach from occurring the same way in future.
Modern IT systems will have certain built-in detection capabilities which can help to make the case for a system upgrade, but routine manual checks are also an important part of a security strategy and help ensure that nothing has fallen through the cracks. As a system administrator, having timely detection is a primary concern as well as a documented reporting chain to streamline the process when a threat is detected.
3. Response
In determining that a security breach occurred, immediately set forth your internal and external action plan as systems are interrelated.
If it has been determined that a security breach has taken place, gather evidence of the breach and take steps to minimize damage. You should have documentation with critical next steps on how to respond depending on the type of breach that has occurred.
Ask questions such as “What was the purpose of the breach?” “What kind of data or information was the breach seeking?” and, “Was secure information downloaded?” Assessing the situation and asking these types of questions will help you to minimize future vulnerabilities and prevent attacks or breaches in future.
When it comes to strategizing security, it can oftentimes be helpful to turn to the experts. Elire is here to help plan and execute your security strategy. Learn more about our Advisory Services here and reach out to [email protected] to set up a time to connect with our team to discuss your security needs.
