Why Basics of Cybersecurity and Your Business?
IT (information Technology), computer Security is a business enabler.
It’s very obvious if your computer is not up and running you will not be able to do much work on your business and this applies to any business big or small.
What does Cyber security/Computer Security/Information Security means to your business?
According to Symantec Cyber security is defined as follow:
“Computer security, also known as cybersecurity or IT security, is security applied to computing devices such as computers and smartphones, as well as computer networks such as private and public networks, including the whole Internet.”
The bottom line of Cyber Security is to preserve confidentiality of your customer data, integrity of your business and availability of your computing devices and resources for access when required such as your website, production servers etc.
You can apply Security to your computing devices in the following three major ways:
1. Physical security- Are your computing devices are kept in the right place, protected from theft/attack, cold/hot whether, or if you run datacentre away from areas with known natural disasters. Physical security one of the major issues, when breached it allows access to both equipment and data loss.
Physical security needs to be designed to deny unauthorized access to IT equipment and resources, and to protect personnel and property from damage or harm and it can be classified as deterrent or preventative . It also needs to protect from spying on intellectual property, theft, or terrorist attacks.
2. Protected from virus, malware and unauthorized accesses by firewall- Logical
At the age of technology we are in it’s not enough to anti-virus and firewall. Security has to be an on-going process to prevent; detects and mitigate all cyber security incidents.
3. Administrative –Do you have access policies in place? If you have are they properly implemented? In the last 18 months Securedtech conducted IT Security gap assessment for several businesses and we found out that there are no access policies documents properly or enforced correctly.
Do you train your employee to basic IT security or information assurance awareness? In Cybersecurity internal breach is main issue. March 2014 Morrison payroll data was stolen and published on the Internet and the company’s statement was as follows: Morrison said its “initial investigation does not point to the work of an outside hacker”
Educating your employee and yourself, as a business owner is the best insurance policy you can have. Employees breach your business data security intentionally or unintentionally.
Unintentional damages can be limited by implementing proper access policies and providing basic security awareness training. Proper access policy on a “need to know ” bases can help minimize intentional damages.
Make your staff aware of cybersecurity threats and how to deal with them.
Why IT/Cybersecurity and your business is on-going?
The simple analogy of data security is that we close our front door every day, every night if we don’t do that it’s an invitation to an intruder. The other analogy is we eat everyday and we are on search for new nutrition to look after our health and beautify.
Cybersecurity is also and on going process of applying properly designed security measures to ensure confidentiality, integrity, and availability of data. You take these measures to protect your computing assets, which includes customer data, desktops, laptops, servers, smartphones, buildings, and most importantly, humans. The goal of cybersecurity is to protect data both in transit and at rest.
In 2014 the Cybersecurity cost to the UK businesses according research conducted by the Department for Business Innovation and skills is between £65,000 and £115,000 for small organizations and between £600,000 and £1.15 million for large organisations. You would agree the figures for this year would be much higher.
To prevent these huge cost and above all the loss of reputation countermeasures can be put in place in order to increase the security of data. Some of these measures include, are not limited to, access control, awareness training, audit and accountability, risk assessment, penetration testing, vulnerability management, and security assessment and authorization etc.
We make a difference by helping businesses to operate in a safe and secure environment where they can thrive and prosper.
Securedtech is West London based IT Security solution company.
We make a difference by helping businesses to operate in a safe and secure environment where they can thrive and prosper. For free IT security gap assessment get in touch.