Author:
Stephen Fowler, Director of Technologies
Stephen writes about the current increased cybersecurity risk to your business. If you would like to talk about your own cyber security needs, please email him at sfowler@omnicybersecurity.com
During an extended period of heightened cyber threat, systems, processes and workforce will come under pressure. Maintaining a strengthened cyber posture in a sustainable and efficient way is critical, whilst prioritising staff wellbeing. Looking after your staff is not only important from an HR perspective, it also directly contributes towards maintaining cybersecurity and resilience.
There may be periods when cyber threats are enhanced for an extended period, for example as a result of geopolitical tensions. During these periods many businesses will experience an immediate need to strengthen their defences and address vulnerabilities. A key example is obviously COVID-19 when the market saw an unprecedented demand for multi-factor authentication and numerous other cyber defence and remote access technologies to support an indefinite time of change and shift to home working.
Over time, the cyber threat may come down again, but it is unlikely to return to the previous baseline. Businesses must retain aspects of their strengthened posture for the long term, in response to a changed threat landscape. However, it can often be difficult to maintain a strengthened posture for a long period of time, particularly for small to medium sized businesses with limited resources. Added to this, increased workloads for cybersecurity staff over an extended period may harm their wellbeing and lead to lower productivity which could result in errors or mistakes.
A good way to remain vigilant to the heightened cyber threat is to ensure that the basic hygiene controls within your company are in place and functioning correctly. Even if there’s no evidence of a successful cyber-attack. That doesn’t equate to a change in adversary capability or intent; instead, it could demonstrate that your cyber defences are working effectively.
To this end, engaging with an independent 3rd party cybersecurity consultancy to proactively test your environment is highly recommended. This will not only ensure your business is aware of any priorities and fixes required to ensure you stay ahead of the threat whilst taking pressure off staff in respond cyber-attacks on the fly, allowing the business to focus on the business.
OmniCyber Security provides end-to-end visibility of your cyber security exposure, from Penetration Testing, Social Engineering, Cyber Essentials to guidance to disseminate regulations that impact your business such as forthcoming ISO27001 revisions. In addition, talk to OmniCyber Security for your cybersecurity technologies, Firewall replacement, Endpoint Detection and Response, Multi-Factor Authentication and in particular, web-based Cyber Security Awareness Training.
Improving long-term cyber security resilience is imperative. An extended period of heightened cyber threat may result in long-term shifts in adversary capability or intent and so you will need to strengthen your cyber security and resilience on a continuous basis, accelerating planned actions to harden networks and improve your resilience capabilities.
