How to Create Cyber Resilience in a Business

Cyber Resilience October 01, 2020

Hanh Truong

Information technology has enabled society and the economy to function seamlessly. Businesses, in particular, reap immense benefits from new technology, in which executives can monitor their operation and archive pertinent information.

However, organizations must take extra precautions when using information systems as they can encounter a threatening cyber incident, such as data breaches or brand exploitation. It is integral that firms implement cyber resilience solutions to deter these threats.

What is Cyber Resilience and Why is it Important

Cyber resilience is an organization's capability to respond and recover from a cyber attack. Resilient organizations can operate effectively while being able to defend against threats to their systems and data.

A global survey in 2019 reported that 79% of respondents classified cyber risks as one of their top 5 concerns for their organizations. In fact, the United States government allocated $15 billion on activities for cyber security in 2019.

Businesses as well are increasingly adopting cyber security strategies with cyber resilience solutions to curb digital threats. While the former is implemented to protect business systems and information, cyber resilience ensures that operations are functioning during and after the breach.

Businesses must implement resilience strategies because cyber attacks can cause damage to systems and expose confidential information. These solutions can tackle the most common threats, such as-

Cybercrime

This is an Internet offense intended to damage a person or organization's reputation. Cybercrimes can lead to loss of capital, information, and security.

A common form of cybercrime is malware infections, which is software that damages a computer to steal information. Phishing is another type of offense and is the practice of making fake emails and websites to coax a person to reveal confidential details.

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Hacktivism

Hacktivism is based on computer techniques, such as hacking, and is generally motivated by social or political reasons. Denial of service is a category of hacktivism, in which it forces a system to shut down so individuals cannot access it.

Other forms of hacktivism include doxing, information leakage, and typosquatting - which is when a hacker registers a popular website address with a misspelling to target unsuspecting visitors.

Cyber Espionage

Cyber espionage is a form of online spying that allows attackers to find confidential information without authorized consent or knowledge.

Organizations can be subject to cyber espionage if they do not have proper cyber security or if they lack a system to classify what information can or cannot be shared with the public, other companies, or on social media. This can cause classified materials such as business trade secrets, financial services, employee information, and supply chain data to be leaked.

Components of Cyber Resilience

Cyber resilience protects an organization using these components-

Threat Protection

A resilience strategy is a preventative measure and organizations must plan out methods and tools to defend themselves from various types of cybercriminals.

For example, organizations that use disparate systems to analyze data should minimize any threats to their information by using reliable data integration software.

Recoverability

This component refers to an organization's ability to recover after a breach occurs. All information systems and security data should be backed up in another database. This is the key to recoverability because it ensures that all original data is secure and can be regenerated, in the case that data was erased due to an attack.

Cyber resilient organizations should also establish procedures that outline what personnel should do during an event of a security breach. With these guidelines, the organization should do test-runs to ensure that everyone understands their role and that the procedures can run smoothly without any human error.

Adaptability

Cybercriminals will continue to find new ways to attack technology systems; therefore, firms must adapt and update their cyber resilience strategies.

Utilizing a security team will enhance adaptability since there is personnel dedicated to monitoring cyber threats and patterns in real -ime. This will help organizations quickly and correctly handle attacks on their data security and critical infrastructure.

Durability

This is determined based on how a business can continue its regular operation after a cyber attack. The durability of cyber resilience strategies will be enhanced when organizations frequently conduct reports and update their procedures and threat intelligence.

4 Steps of Creating Cyber Resilience

Establishing solutions for cyber resilience requires these 4 steps-

1. Protect and Manage
Management and network security teams need to identify all of the risks that their information systems and supply chain databases may encounter. This will enable teams to properly protect against data breaches, unauthorized access, and system failures. Organizations should also consider vulnerability management, malware protection, security for communications, and encryption for data protection.

At this stage, teams should create policies for cyber security and awareness training for security personnel to further enhance risk management. Case studies recommend that extra measures should be implemented, such as authorized identity access which allows only certain people to retrieve information.

2. Identify and Detect
Authorized staff and security services should frequently monitor networks, which will enable them to catch any abnormalities and potential threats. With active-detection methods, organizations can identify issues quickly and inhibit further damage. For example, artificial intelligence can be used for threat detection, in which its automated techniques and algorithms can speedily identify and analyze responses to threats.

3. Act and Recover

In the event of a cyberattack, organizations should have an incident response management process that helps operations to continue regular functions. Incident management ensures a seamless recovery by analyzing responses to threats and strengthening preventative methods.

Additionally, implementing business continuity management will address all cyber risk concerns by establishing prevention and recovery systems, as well as maintaining business operations during the process of restoration.

4. Take Control
Executive and management teams must continually supervise cyber resilience solutions and ensure that it is properly implemented. By committing to comprehensively managing cyber risks and frequently making improvements, businesses will be able to tailor safety methods that work best for them.

Taking the steps to create a cyber resilience strategy will enable organizations to have the upper hand in securing classified information and preventing a harmful cyberattack with a quick detection response.