The widespread impact of cyber attacks has caused organizations to inspect their cyber resilience across not only their own organizations, but also their supply chains. Data is under constant attacks, and threats have been emerging regularly especially when security is not protected.
Here are some steps to protect data:
1. A renewed focus on database security
Having a proper database security is important to keep up with today’s threats and vulnerabilities in the system. Since employees work remotely, it is very much possible for data to be stolen from an organization. The main focus now should be to protect our most valuable part of the organization which is data. Limiting user access to sensitive data and getting alerts of suspicious activities is useful. Organizations should have technology solutions for data protection and database monitoring.
2. Assume a breach
Organizations should look over every unusual activity that occurs just in case it's a breach. Determining and assuming it is a breach before-hand could give the organization less impact. For an additional layer of protection, organizations should supplement this with manual testing by skilled security analysts.
3. Collaborate across private/public sector
Partnerships with task forces and programs like Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency’s, they improve organizations' cybersecurity and they have the ability to detect, prevent, mitigate, respond to and recover from cybersecurity incidents. Working together with different task forces will help the organization to improve faster and ensure the right cybersecurity technologies are in place.
4. Enable continuous monitoring, mitigation and testing
Most threats and attacks sometimes are hidden and the organization doesn't know about them until some sensitive data is stolen. The increasing number of devices connecting to a network makes it harder for organizations to detect these threats. This is where it is important for organizations to make sure to limit access or access is given to the right employees.
5. Train and retain cybersecurity experts
There has been a shortage of cybersecurity employees. As organizations recruit more professionals, they should increase resources and training for cybersecurity programs. Organizations should come up with a strong cyber security team that could help them monitor and aware them of any vulnerabilities to deal with.
Ransomware is not just a topic to discuss for cybersecurity professionals, nowadays ransomware is common with the general public too. So, it is also increasing the awareness of this topic more since everyone is a potential target for ransomware.
One vulnerability is leaving digital footprints meaning if you buy groceries with a debit card, visit a doctor or pay taxes, there is personal information about you in a digital format somewhere. It also means that now systems with low security IoT devices, unpatched system updates and more can all be detected more easily and efficiently than ever.
Although organizations are training employees, those workers are not using their training skills while working. A report from Cloudian found that 65 percent of those who reported a ransomware attack had attended the training for employees. Nowadays organizations focus on the daily cyber awareness training, even though that is a good thing but they should also consider the value of training their security and network professionals. Cyber-awareness training should make sure the training includes technical security professionals gaining the knowledge required for security. By taking steps to prioritize cybersecurity awareness training, organizations and their employees can get ahead of threats before they can make an impact.
Anyone could be a potential target. Everyone can face the risk of ransomware and other types of attacks, especially people who have access to more sensitive data. That's why organizations need to extend cyber-awareness training. No employee is too big or too small for this type of education. It makes sense to equip every employee with the information they need to help defeat cybercrime.
How to protect against ransomware:
Cybersecurity is one of the fastest developing industries. Organizations are looking for professionals with specific abilities to solve problems. Cybersecurity experts are responsible for providing security during the development stages of software systems, networks and data centers.
Here are the top 5 fastest developing cybersecurity skills to learn in 2021:
Application development security is part of the programming advancement life cycle and helps to improve groups. Its goal is to improve security practices and to find, fix and prevent security issues within applications. This part of cybersecurity is always needed and alot of companies look for someone who has knowledge and ability of application development security skills.
Threat intelligence is information an organization uses to understand the threats that could occur right now or later to target the organizations. This info is used to prepare, prevent, and identify cyber threats looking to take advantage of valuable resources. Having threat intelligence skills is important and can help you get a job in a big organization as they would pick someone who has the knowledge.
Incident response is used to quickly identify an attack, minimize its effect on the organization like damage. Not only that, but it can also help to reduce the risk of future incidents. Almost all organizations have an incident response to avoid any threats and attacks or how to deal with these threats if there's a big damage to the organization.
Access management is a term used to control who has access to the network or system and how to limit the access. Access management includes authentication, authorization, trust. The purpose of access management is to provide the right for users to be able to use a service and do the work properly.
Security helps keep health records safe from unauthorized use. Health information security is a process of protection of the data. Since there is patient information in the system, it is important to have a quality and efficiency of care. Having health information security skills is very important to get an ideal job.