Cyber hygiene incorporates a set of practices for managing the most common data security risks faced by organisations today. The aim is to identify and mitigate the common root causes responsible for pervasive cybersecurity threats, including data breaches and malware viruses.
Practicing cyber hygiene is worth it, making it much harder for hackers to succeed in infiltrating your system and reduces the damage they can cause to your business. Incorporating cyber hygiene best practices into your organisation not only ensures that your data is secure, but maintains a superior level of security that keeps everything else safe and secure as well.
All organisations should practice cyber hygiene, to include basic lines of defence and to optimise the response to threats with advanced tools and strategies. Incorporating advanced cybersecurity within your organisation serves to protect your business, but must also allow for innovation and change at the same time. It can’t be restrictive.
It’s estimated that some 75 percent of businesses worldwide are currently operating with only limited cybersecurity infrastructure. It’s therefore fundamentally important to ensure that the best cybersecurity firms are consulted to show you how to practice effective cyber hygiene and to protect your organisation’s assets.
Most common things to think about when it comes to cyber hygiene
RiskXchange has identified the 11 best cyber hygiene practices to thwart the most common cybersecurity risks faced by organisations today. It’s better to put in the work upfront, rather than having to deal with the fallout from a breach later on.
1.Identify your organisation’s assets
Identify and prioritise your company’s assets. Focus on the critical areas; determine what is most important to your organisation, pinpoint its position, and build a cybersecurity risk management strategy around it.
2.Identify the cyber risks, potential impact and response strategies
Devise an incident response plan. Identifying and assessing the risks to your organisation’s operations, assets and individuals is key to mitigating the risks.
3.Create and implement an incident response plan
A plan for responding to significant digital and physical disruptions is needed. Procedures for escalation, roles and responsibilities, and external-partner involvement must be devised. There should be three main components to an incident response plan: legal, technical and managerial.
4.Promote cybersecurity awareness
Educate workers on cybersecurity awareness. Ensure that all employees, managers and partners have adequate cybersecurity skills and awareness within the organisation. Hiring a cybersecurity firm is also one of the fundamental parts of ensuring you are protected for all eventualities.
5.Implement best-practice network design and monitoring principles
Ensuring that your network has adequate monitoring and protection is paramount. Implementing best-practice network design and monitoring principles is key when configuring perimeter and internal network segments, and for protecting your entire network.
6.Minimise risk by limiting access
Ensuring that only those who absolutely need access to specific programs, areas or functions is key to minimising risk by limiting network access.
7.Stay on top with the latest technology
Incorporating the latest technological changes and implementing standardised secure configurations is key. Establish standard secure configurations for operating systems, software applications and hardware. Unpatched vulnerabilities can lead to data breaches and cyberattack.
8.Cybersecurity controls
Cybersecurity controls that prevent the loss and recovery of data should be incorporated into all business systems. It’s imperative that an organisation’s risk strategy outlines how data should be managed to protect the information.
9.Prevent and monitor malware exposures
All steps must be undertaken to prevent malware and to manage the risks. Tools such as anti-virus software, personal firewalls, anti-spyware software and intrusion-protection functionality should all be implemented. Malware detection should be included at all costs.
10.Third-party risk factors
It’s important to manage cyber risks associated with third-party vendors by continuously monitoring threats, vulnerabilities and incidents.
11.Cyber threat and vulnerability monitoring and remediation
It’s crucial to perform cyber threat and vulnerability monitoring and remediation to keep on top of an ever evolving landscape – new threats and vulnerabilities become apparent almost daily. By using leading practice controls, these threats can be stopped in their tracks.
How RiskXchange can help by enabling a company to identify, manage and monitor its business cyber hygiene 24 hours-a-day
RiskXchange is a leading information security technology company, that helps companies of all sizes fight cyber threats by providing instant risk ratings. Our vision is to help organisations of all sizes manage their enterprise and supply chain security risk exposure, by providing a next-generation real-time security risk rating platform, capable of presenting easy to understand security risk and performance ratings for the board.
RiskXchange provides a powerful AI-assisted, yet simple automated and centralised unique 360-degree security risk rating management approach. We generate objective, quantitative reporting on a company’s security risk and performance, that enables organisations with evolving business requirements, to conduct business securely in today’s open, collaborative, digital world.
RiskXchange security ratings:
- Enhance processes by delivering simple overviews of security performance. This is achieved very quickly by reviewing a company’s security rating.
- Give organisations an objective and data-driven rating making it much easier to monitor and evaluate performance of both short and longer terms. Companies with a security rating not only receive prompt alerts in the event of a change to their security performance but can also identify the issue that caused the shift in their rating.
- Enable collaboration and improvements to risk migration plans with partners and third parties. It also aids the setting of security standards in Data Processing Agreements (DPA) and other comparable contracts.
- Helps to get valuable insights into the cyber risk status of business partners and third, even fourth parties and associates.
- Empowers an organisation to be able to spot and remedy cyber risk within supply chain eco-systems.
RiskXchange delivers cost-effective solutions
RiskXchange’s security risk ratings can help you manage cyber hygiene. We offer continuous cybersecurity monitoring, providing real-time visibility of users and their devices on all applications, software and device types. Our cybersecurity monitoring best practices give organisations the ability to continuously look over their network to stay one step ahead of any cyber threats.
Our security ratings give a calculated assessment of an organisation’s effectiveness on all aspects of security performance. Ratings draw upon a range of data to analyse and inform, ultimately enabling organisations to objectively review and act upon its processes and the security measures it has in place. What’s more, the rating also helps to identify challenges and opportunities to make improvements. Our cyber security risk ratings enable better management of an organisation’s cyber risk, such as:
· Insight into risks associated with third or fourth parties and supply chain relationships. When a security rating is in place, it can significantly aid the effective management of cyber risk from external parties.
· An up-to-date rating allows for better transparency to assist insurance underwriters in the assessment, calculation and risk management of security process and performance.
· Cyber security due diligence is hugely important during periods of business growth, including the acquisition of or investment in a company. Organisations must be able to access enhanced information and continually review any investment; a security rating enables this.
· Security ratings help governments to gain better insight and understanding into Critical National Infrastructure (CNI), ultimately enabling better management of their cyber security performance.
What’s more, security ratings also aid the ongoing management of an organisation’s internal cyber activity including risk and compliance.
In this instance, a rating allows for:
- Assessments of internal security activity to be carried out on a rolling basis, helping to provide clarity to a range of stakeholders.
- Industry-wide benchmarking, including peer to peer and competitor.
- Greater customer confidence in the organisation’s digital presence and activities. This higher level of confidence touches others with vested interest including third parties, stakeholders and industry regulators.
About RiskXchange
RiskXchange is an information security technology company, that helps companies of all sizes fight the threat of cyber threats by providing instant risk ratings for any company across the globe. RiskXchange was founded and is led by recognised experts within the security industry, who have held leading roles within companies such as IBM Security.