What is enterprise cybersecurity?
Today’s organizations, no matter their size, consist of many digital assets that power and enable businesses. These assets, including websites, information, data and other forms of an online presence have become the fuel of modern businesses. And they all need to be protected.
Enter: enterprise cybersecurity. Enterprise cybersecurity, like its counterpart in the physical world, defends and protects all an organization’s digital assets, no matter where they are stored or accessed. To keep themselves effectively protected, companies need to implement comprehensive cybersecurity strategies.
And protecting digital assets and executing these protection strategies is never the job of just one person, or even a group of people, at any given company. As Gil Vega, chief information security officer at Veeam Software, explains, “Everybody…is responsible for cybersecurity, including the CEO, including the board, including the senior leadership team. It takes everybody to make sure that the company is prepared.”
What makes enterprise cybersecurity important?
Vega points out that hackers are “starting to get smarter about usage of business intel.” Hackers want your company’s sensitive data, and they are shrewd about how they use that data to manipulate and extort your company before they ransom your data back to you. Your cybersecurity defense strategy is going to be what keeps your organization protected and guarded against these bad actors. This is where the true value of enterprise cybersecurity is shown. A well-developed cybersecurity plan, and execution of protection technologies and management, helps combat cyber threats, data leaks, phishing attempts, malware and so much more.
Cyber threats
The main goal of a cybersecurity threat is to attack and break into your company’s digital assets (network, databases, applications, email systems etc…) and extract your most sensitive information, or simply disable your information infrastructure to bring business to a halt. Bryan Seely, an ethical hacker, explains that “a lot of things are really simple in a way that hackers go about it is, they try to find the lowest hanging fruit, the easiest to exploit vulnerabilities,” and once the hacker is in, it becomes even easier to make lateral moves and jump from computer to computer, mining data and credentials as they move through the system. This type of breach can often result in a data leak.
Data leaks
Data leaks occur when any data is accessed by an unauthorized source, either externally or someone inside the organization. These bad actors should of never had access to that information in the first place. When these leaks happen, Seely explains, that often “It’s the people with the power they’re going after. They are going after CISOs, CFOs, CEOs.” They want to attack people at the top of that company’s organizational chart. Gaining access to their information gives the hackers even more leverage when bartering for a ransom later down the line. It often also opens hackers up to higher levels of access to the company’s information. Posing as the organization’s higher-ranking members, cyber criminals now have the clearance to interact with the company as a whole, often resulting in disastrous consequences for the business.
Consequences of a cyber attack
When hackers target the data of both high-ranking company members, and just the company in general, it isn’t only private information that is at risk. It is also the integrity and the reputation of the company. When current and potential customers are looking at a company and see that they’ve been hacked, it makes them lose trust in that organization and its ability to protect their customer’s data. This can result in huge financial losses as well. Additionally, the company’s workflow will be disrupted, stalling efficiency, and costing even more money in the long run. And these issues aren’t exclusive to big businesses either. Any company, non-profit, government agency that is attacked — no matter the size — can have their data stolen and compromised, resulting in a loss of reputation, and in some cases, even legal action.
Best practices for enterprise cybersecurity
Seely points out that “resiliency is just as important as having a good defense.” In other words, it is important to both keep attackers out, and be prepared to stop them if (and when) they get past your defenses. So, with the power of defense and resiliency in mind, let’s examine some of the best practices companies can employ for their enterprise cybersecurity.
- Be camera shy. The less information that people can discover about you or your company online, the better.
- Keep up to date with updates and maintenance. Falling behind on cybersecurity updates and technology can often be the golden opportunity hackers are looking for.
- Identify threats and assess the situation on a regular basis. You can’t defend against something you don’t know about. Awareness is the key to a strong defense.
- Learn various ways to detect and neutralize threats — both internal and external. Hackers are continuously evolving in their attempts to enter your systems; your defenses should be continuously evolving too.
- Utilize end-to-end security. Coordinate with partners and clients to widen your net and increase the chances of being able to detect threats.
- Employee education. Teaching your team about all the different risk factors can help to reduce the number of attacks that are generated through human error alone. Employees need to have awareness and understanding of the different types of hacks, as well as the risks and penalties that come with them.
- Examine the potential vulnerabilities or weak spots in your organization’s defense strategy. Discover where you could be susceptible to attack and defend it.
- Create strong passwords and defense. This is especially true for high-level members who are more likely to be targets of an attack.
- Implement multi-factor authentication, or MFA. This use of multiple forms for authentication can help to lower the chances of an attack being successful.
- Have an action plan in place for when an attack occurs. To best be prepared to navigate all the risks of a cyberattack, you need to have a solid defense plan in place that you use to ensure your company responds to the attack with the best of their ability.
To learn more, watch the discussion between Gil Vega and Bryan Seely at the Veeam Enterprise Data Protection Summit here during their session, The Business of Keeping the Business Safe.
You can also visit Veeam.com to learn more about the comprehensive Veeam data protection platform.
Link to data protection platform: https://www.veeam.com/data-protection-platform.html.
