October being Cybersecurity Awareness Month, it offers a perfect opportunity for organizations to review their cybersecurity posture and device strategies to strengthen data security defense. Companies offering managed IT services for government contractors should make extra efforts to bolster their client’s cybersecurity stance regarding cybersecurity for federal contractors.
Here are a few things you can learn from 2022 and implement in your future cybersecurity strategy.
1. Remote working needs extra cybersecurity measures.
Although the remote working model had always been popular, the Covid pandemic and lockdown situation made more and more companies embrace it. And even as the world has gone back to normal, businesses are exploring new ways to incorporate fully remote or hybrid work setups. Remote working offers a lot of advantages to both employers as well as employees. But with that, remote work setup has also increased the issue of cyber threats. In remote working, employees often use unsecured home networks to access the business network, which means more entry points for cybercriminals to attack your network.
In today’s time and age, simply securing your corporate network will not ensure complete data security. You will have to add an extra line of defense to secure your remote workers. Some ways to achieve this are regular employee training on best data security practices, VPNs, endpoint management tools, and remote access programming solutions.
2. Regular cybersecurity training is essential more than ever.
Cybercrimes and data breaches are evolving at an unprecedented rate. The only way to combat new cyber threats is to adapt to the latest data security standards and constantly stay up to new data security innovations. Thus, regular employee training on data security is crucial.
Organizations can involve their employees in cybersecurity initiatives by conducting regular workshops, webinars, and conferences on cyber threats defense. There are plenty of cybersecurity defense resources available on the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and the National Cybersecurity Alliance websites to get started with cybersecurity training.
No matter how essential cybersecurity is, it’s not a core function of most organizations. Thus, partnering with a reliable managed IT services provider can help such organizations stay abreast with the latest cybersecurity trends and frameworks. Besides this, they can train the employees and staff members on cybersecurity best practices.
3. Regularly test and update cyber incident response plans.
No organization can ever be 100% secure from cyber threats. No matter how robust your data security defense mechanism is, cybercriminals may find loopholes to infiltrate your data system. Besides this, other scenarios like server downtime and natural or man-made disaster can also cause data loss.
Thus, organizations should put incident response plans in place. However, just drafting and implementing incident response plans are not enough. One should also review and update their plans to incorporate new cyber threats and data loss scenarios.
4. Make strong passwords and MFA your friend.
Passwords are an essential line of defense and go a long way in securing your accounts and locking out malicious intruders. Thus, using unique and strong passwords for your accounts is advised. A strong password usually contains uncommon phrases, words, and symbols. Apart from using strong passwords, enabling Two-step Verification or Multi-factor Authentication can further keep hackers out of your accounts. MFA requires the users to confirm their identity by asking for additional information like face scans, biometric details, or OTPs. Thus, MFA works as an extra layer of protection for your account.
