12 Cybersecurity Measures for Business
The best way to protect your business from the constant, growing threat of cyberattacks is always changing. The best practices in cybersecurity just a few years ago may not be enough to stand up against the advancements made by threat actors. Updating your security and your systems to include the latest cybersecurity measures for business is the best way to protect your organization from the latest trends in cyberattacks. From preventative measures to preparation and response strategies, these are the latest cybersecurity measures businesses can take to boost their security posture.
1. High Standard Encryption
Encryption isn’t anything new in cybersecurity, but it hasn’t gotten any less important. It’s not enough to just encrypt company data anymore either. The level of encryption matters. Advanced Encryption Standards or AES is the gold standard in encryption for governments, health services and financial institutions.
In addition to strengthening cybersecurity, high standard encryption offers cost saving benefits too. Such encryption helps companies meet data storage regulation requirements which helps businesses avoid hefty fines and penalties. In the event of a cyberattack, high standard encryption often lowers the overall cost of data breach, saving companies an average of $1.25 million per breach.
2. Endpoint DLP
Endpoint DLP is a cybersecurity measure applied to individual devices and users rather than the network as a whole. Employee monitoring, for example, is an endpoint DLP tool that tracks when, how and what data is being accessed by the user/device.
This is particularly important for fully or partially remote teams that work outside the safety of the network perimeter. Monitoring and protecting data isn’t the only use of endpoint DLP either. Software such as this detects insider threats and assists IT in performing forensic investigations and compliance. Since data used and stored on the device is monitored, organizations can keep track of externally stored data and make sure it’s being held and accessed within regulation standards.
3. Multifactor Authentication
In 2021 alone, 61% of data breaches involved user credentials and user credentials continue to be one of the most sought after data types. Multifactor authentication helps reign these percentages in by requiring two or more factors or pieces of evidence in order to use login credentials. Without the additional factors needed to verify a sign in, stolen credentials are unusable.
Multifactor authentication can seriously cut down on attacks. In 2019, 99.9% of automated attacks were blocked due to multifactor authentication.
4. Microsegmentation
Data microsegmentation is a cybersecurity practice that creates different data zones in a data center or server. Each data zone or segment then has its own unique access policies and security measures. Microsegmentation of data works like a firewall does for a network, denying access unless the user or device has expressed access or permissions.
During a cyberattack, microsegmentation limits the attack surface. If one section or application is breached, other sections remain protected since they’re segmented out. By reducing the attack surface, organizations save themselves from a lengthy and costly containment period after an attack occurs.
5. AI & Security Automation
AI and automation in cybersecurity relies on machine learning and natural language processors to detect data threats and malicious activities. Using learned behavior patterns, it’s able to detect activity anomalies that may threaten the system.
As cyberattacks evolve and become more complex, AI and security automation help organizations scale their cybersecurity operations in a cost effective way by providing threat detection mechanisms without much additional labor. Then, when a breach does happen, AI & automation save organizations precious time and money. Data breaches are identified and contained 27% faster with security automation and saves organizations over $3 million per breach.
6. Identity and Access Management
Identity and access management or IAM is a collection of practices and policies that help IT maintain the profiles of users and devices accessing data while also keeping data secure. The streamlined process helps IT more efficiently manage data access and easily maintain compliance measures like limiting data access based on least privilege.
IAM limits the possibility of insider threats. Since access is grouped and granted by role, there’s a smaller chance of privileged access being accidentally granted, and IT can more easily monitor access and revoke it if necessary.
7. Pentesting & Cyber Threat Rehearsals
Having cybersecurity measures in place to protect company data is great but knowing how they stand up to an attack is even better. Pentesting and cyber threat rehearsals bridge that knowledge gap. Each brings its own advantage to a cybersecurity program.
Pentesting, or penetration testing, is ethical hacking that helps organizations identify weaknesses in their security structures while cyber threat rehearsals train the response team for a real-life attack. While you wouldn’t do something like this at home, these cybersecurity measures for business strengthen and boost security readiness for both the people and systems involved. Testing and rehearsals provide insights into where security can be improved to better prepare an organization for an attack.
8. Compliance Risk Audits
For highly regulated industries like healthcare and finance, the cost of a breach is felt for years. Organizations in such industries continue to pay for a breach for over two years after it occurs. It’s both a longer and higher payout. The cost of a data breach soars to $5.65 million for organizations with high-level compliance failures.
Performing regular and detailed compliance risk audits helps mitigate these costs and helps companies better protect themselves against risk. By getting insights into risk possibilities and revealing compliance deficiencies, organizations can identify gaps in compliance and where risks are most likely to occur. This saves organizations from paying high breach costs and better prepares them for an attack.
9. Incident Response Plans
Part of any meaningful cybersecurity strategy for business is having a plan in place for when a breach does take place. It’s not a matter of if, but when an attack will take place.
An Incident response plan lowers downtime after a breach, curtails loss in client and customer trust and works to lower remediation costs. When organizations have a proactive plan in place for when a breach occurs, they’re able to effectively communicate with the public and respond to the breach quickly, lessening the fallout from a breach. Breach responses are so important to cybersecurity measures for business, the FTC published a guide to help businesses create and plan them.
10. Zero Trust
Zero trust is a security model encompassing many cybersecurity measures for business, many of which are mentioned above. In a zero trust security infrastructure, the network security idea of “trust but verify” is replaced with “trust no one.” Using the model assumes that every user and device is already a compromised threat to the network and therefore must be authenticated and validated before access is granted.
Multifactor authentication, microsegmentation, security automation and identity management are all tenets of zero trust. Because the model assumes everyone and thing is a threat to the network, security and access to the network is ultra tight. And organizations are better off for using zero trust. Organizations with even zero trust deployed at any level saw savings of up to $1.74 million per breach.
11. SIEM
SIEM, or security information and event management, is a security workflow solution that collects, categorizes and analyzes incident alerts from security technologies in use. SIEM tools fall under AI & security automation as a cybersecurity measure so businesses using it experience the cost savings and shorter breach lifecycles that come with automation.
Aside from savings, SIEM also directly benefits the IT and security operators in an organization. The availability of IT and security professionals is low, leaving gaps in security coverage for many businesses and many operators stretched too thin. The security analysis SIEM provides helps fill that gap and relieve a burdened IT department.
12. SOAR
SOAR is similar to SIEM in that it’s a security workflow solution that eases organizational burden of a security stack. However, SOAR takes it a step further to include incident responses. SOAR, or security orchestration automation and response, aids IT and security teams by collecting and responding to incident alerts from different security technologies.
SOAR simplifies a business’s security stack by creating an efficient workflow of unified security technologies that cuts down on incident response time and eases the workload of IT and security operators. Combining different technologies and cybersecurity measures for business under one system has proven beneficial. Organizations using SOAR workflows report a 41% cost savings and a 76% increase in staff efficiency.