Enterprises be it big or medium sized are all shifting their critical assets and data to cloud computing services and this has led to acceleration in amount of cyber-attack & Cyber Security targeting both critical assets and data.
The process of cyber security preparedness for IT security leaders who are in midst of multiple challenges trying to figure out the most crucial part they first need to
resolve the basics. As a part of preparedness state having a checklist is the best way
to start and go on.
As per Ivanti report 97% leaders say their enterprises are as prepared or more prepared for a cyber attack than a year ago.
For example prioritizing patching is important and 92%leaders said in the survey
they have a method to do that and according to Srinivas Mukkamala, chief product
officer Ivanti pointed “ a well-funded and well trained security team also face challenges while prioritizing patching in midst of other demands”.
If we go by previous years data Ransomeware, Coti Ransomeware, Crypto Theft, Social engineering attack, Drone intrusion and Data theft are major theme based attack that got prominence. And the cost that involved in its Data breach report is a US$4.35 million. Growing cyber-attack bring in devastating impact on businesses, costing them millions of dollars in damages. One of the reason preparedness is important in 2023 to avert damages.
Major Cyber-Attack of 2022
If we look at major cyber-attacks that happened in 2022 then the list is filled with some of the biggest attacks like the Chinese Attack on Networks of Six US State Government Systems, The Russian Ukraine war that initiated DDoS attack by the Ukrainian army on Russian systems, Social engineering attack on Marriott Data & cyber-attack on two Iranian steel plant and latest is Twitter Breach causing 5.4 million accounts to be stolen to name a few.
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2023 is also no different and the trend show that cybercriminals are becoming more advanced. Their main aim is to target businesses that can pay higher ransom fees or steel sensitive data or target a business or an organization and destroy their systems with virus or legal liabilities causing reputational damages.
State of preparedness:
Steps can be initiated to have a secured and hygiene cyber regime Protecting
business from malware is one of the topmost priorities and that can start with
installing an Antivirus which will help protecting the business and internal assets.
Creating strong passwords and keep changing them from time to time will help
in cyber hygiene.
Blocking unauthorized access to network can be done by installing company
Firewall. This will spare the organization from having their network, data assets
being exposed to hackers. Having a plan in place by cyber leaders to protect
data from breaches well in advance and also minimize the cost.
Having an insurance cover for data breaches in case of data loss will minimize
financial loss as cyber-attacks are proving to be costly affair.
A well placed incident response team is a necessary for a timely response to cyber attack and help in recovery of damages. The incident response team should be able to connect at both organizational as well as business requirement such as communicating with customers and giving them right information about any incident.
Ransomware attack is going to be there and leaders have to be prepared as work gets more complicated and cyber criminals becoming more active in compromising backups. Organization will have to gear up taking care of endpoint security as they are initial vectors for any type of cyber- attack.
Automate patch management and counter reaction to attackers’ intrusion and
breach attempts on out-of-date systems and endpoints must end and that is
the reason in 2023, enterprises need to automate patch management.
Implementing cyber security best practice and strategy in 2023 within the organization, security teams and stakeholders will uplift conscious approach and awareness thereby minimizing the after effects.
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To improve cyber security postures organizations must resort to zero trust architecture, proper security tools and MFA (multifactor authentication).
All these will demand an increased security budget for which organizations must be prepared.
Improving security postures and the way organizations communicate with their customers will require more transparency in 2023 because customers appreciate honesty. As Any data leak become more public customers expect more transparency instead instead of trying to downplay the incident or hide it.
Also if we notice there is a huge skill gap and labour shortage in cyber security
domain and having cyber training right that fall in place. Reports from ISC2 found
the global cyber security workforce gap increased by 26.2% in 2022 compared to
2021, and 3.4 million more workers are required.
The Ivanti report found that CISO’s and Security leaders are optimistic about
budgets being increased for the year 2023 and if this is happening we are
assured to having a skilled workforce.
With trained skilled workers it becomes easier to tackle complicated attacks and save the brand value. Humans are the weakest link when it comes to security. Often we see that employees ignore corporate security advice. Research show that IT security decision maker’s biggest concern is cyber- attack or any ransomware attack evolving beyond their company’s security capabilities.
An organization is only as strong as its weakest link. If an employee lacks the right knowledge about cyber security it could expose vulnerability and that can be devastating.