Enforcing a robust cybersecurity culture in your organization

Blog by Glorious Insight

 

Introduction and vast deployment of technologies such as ToI devices, cloud computing, and many more have delivered exceptional benefits to businesses. However, the same has exposed businesses to an increasing number of more dangerous cyber attacks. With almost all the information floating over the Internet or cloud companies are in a more vulnerable position. This necessitates the development and strict implementation of a robust cybersecurity culture in every organization.

 

Cyber threats have grown to be more sophisticated than ever before. Data breaches have become common and frequent. This has pushed cybersecurity to the highest priority for all the companies, regardless of the industry. According to ESG, nearly 40% of the companies have cybersecurity as their top priority and are going to continue focussing on it at least for the coming year.

 

Often businesses spend a significant amount on technology and fail to acknowledge the human side that is also a dominant cybersecurity risk. The most common type of online attack is done using phishing and other similar techniques. More than 40% of the cyber attacks target small companies out of which more than 60% experience phishing attacks. Mostly employees of an organization could not identify a phishing email and click on it to allow attackers in. This is where technological investment goes in vain.

 

Employees of an organization are direct and prolonged access to its computers and networks. It is apparent to believe that this personnel is a vital component of the internet threat landscape. This emphasizes the need for establishing and enforcing a solid cybersecurity culture to protect your valuable information.

 

Glorious Insight creates and deploys customized data analytics and BI solutions with high-end security features inbuilt to ensure a safe and protected generation, visualization, and sharing of enterprise data. Our systems are built with robust access control and authentication methods to expose only the required data at various levels.

 

√ Challenges companies face in implementing a strong cybersecurity culture

Security culture is essentially a fusion of cybersecurity solutions and employees' behavior. Both components play an important role in developing and maintaining a strong security culture that safeguards your digital assets. It is a more profound version of security awareness that only concerns the knowledge and attitude of the employees. Establishing a cybersecurity culture includes considering values and behavioral patterns along with awareness.

 

At Glorious Insight, we work closely with the organization and its members. This close association has uncovered two main challenges that the companies generally face in administering an authoritative cybersecurity culture.

 

 Lack of understanding and willingness on employees’ part

Mostly the knowledge pertaining to cyber laws, security measures, and practices implemented by the companies stay only with the IT and network security teams. This team has a vital role but is just a part of the big picture. According to a report published in CompTIA, 50% of the workforce members have no formal training in cybersecurity. No wonder, they save passwords on their devices or write in diaries weakening the security.

 

•  nadequate participation from managementI

When it comes to implementing security culture and adhering to it, management has to lead by example. Leadership buy-in is crucial in building security resilience in an organization. Proper training programs should be conducted to bring together executives, managers, and employees at each level for a collaborative effort.

 

Since the outbreak of COVID-19, the incidences of cybercrime has reached new heights. The US FBI has seen a 300% surge in reported cybercrime. In the past three years, more than 90% of healthcare organizations have faced cyber-attacks.

 

These statistics emphasize the need for a holistic approach to cybersecurity. By acknowledging and resolving these basic issues companies can notice a significant positive impact on cybersecurity in the form of reduced internet attacks and exploitation of their data.

 

√ Benefits you can draw from a cybersecurity culture

Implementing cybersecurity is much more than establishing rules and asking employees to frequently change their passwords. In most cases, employees do not intentionally expose their company’s assets to threats. They need detailed training and guidance to identify different types of cybercrimes and impede these attacks before they could cause any damage. Companies should find ways to seamlessly develop a culture across the enterprise and integrate best practices in everyday working to ensure. Some prominent benefits of deploying cybersecurity culture include the following.

 

       • Protection of data and network from unauthorized access

       • Establishment of brand loyalty and strong customers’ trust

       • Reinstate confidence of stakeholders and enhance company credentials

       • Improved information security leads to improved business continuity

       • Speedy recovery in the event of a breach

 

√ Implementing a security culture

The company and its employees must have solid support and control for the cybersecurity culture. The implementation must be done not just to some specific sections but to the entire organization and all the processes and people.

 

The collaborative effort is the key to successful security culture. You must be able to define the security standards and guidance and be able to identify if anything goes south at the earliest. It is important that you plan, measure, and optimize your security strategies continuously.

 

Data analytics and BI solutions from Glorious Insight can give you essential insight into the employees' behavior and activities to identify anything going in the direction that you are not intended to. Our system works with real-time data and legacy data to draw quick, precise, and valuable conclusions and help initiate actions to block the threat or mitigate the impact of the attack. We provide companies a well-designed security plan that helps them achieve a high level of security as assessed by the capability maturity model (CMM). The model has a five-level scale defined to evaluate the security capabilities of a company.

 

      • Initial: No awareness program

      • Repeatable: Focussed on compliance

      • Defined: Encourage awareness and adapt

      • Managed: Prepared with long-term sustainable security

      • Optimized: Well-defined metrics framework for continuous evaluation and improvement

 

√ Best cybersecurity practices for 2020

Employee education and changing and protecting passwords is the basic that every company in the present-day is doing. To deal with the modern sophisticated type of cybercrimes, companies have to analyze a large amount of data to stay abreast of the potential types of cyber threats and their likelihood.

 

Data analytics also help companies to assess the possible damage these threats can cause and for effective and efficient risk management. Here are some best practices that can help companies develop a robust security culture and save their assets from cybercrime.

 

 • Controlling and avoiding random clicks

Employees should be given clear instructions to think twice before clicking an email or ad. They must be training formally to make them more security conscious and more accountable for their actions and their consequences.

 

• Suspicious emails are reported and shared

Employees should be encouraged to participate in security compliance in every possible way. They must be guided to report every suspicious email and also share it with the security department to initiate proper action. This proactive approach is likely to bring done the number of unsolicited malicious emails and messages over time thereby creating a more secure environment.

 

 • Practical policies to reduce faulty behavior

It is not advisable to impose impractical restrictions on the staff members. The more practical your policies will be, the lesser are the chances that they indulge in unlawful activities. It minimizes the chances that an employee would copy an important file on removable storage or vulnerable cloud.

 

 • Open culture for easy assistance

Frequent and easy communication should be established between the employees and the IT and network security teams. This would not only encourage people to report any malicious activity but also help them enquire and clear their doubts. This proactively improves the implementation and adherence to the company's security policies.

 

 • Metrics-based monitoring

Quantifying security measures and regular assessment and testing based on well-defined metrics can enhance the cybersecurity culture to a great extent. With the help of metrics, you can evaluate the effectiveness of training programs, the efficiency of the security team, and the overall impact of the security plan. It helps in constant adaptation and improvement of a robust cybersecurity culture.