Cyber resilience is similar to business resilience; both attempt to help an organization adapt quickly as it responds to disruptive events. The components underpinning cyber resilience must first be understood before they can be managed, maintained and improved. The ultimate goal of cyber resiliency is to use next-gen infrastructure to help an organization thrive in the face of adverse conditions (crisis, pandemic, financial volatility, cyberattacks and more). So is your business thriving? Or is it at risk?
Gartner informs us that by 2023, 75 percent of organizations will restructure risk and security governance to address the widespread adoption of advanced technologies, an increase from fewer than 15 percent today. A cyber resilience strategy begins with the understanding that not all threats can be prevented from entering an organization and more importantly, that attacks may not be equally recognizable as such. Highly researched threat actors have proven more than capable of evading border defenses and traditional internal detection methods. That’s why it’s vital for business leaders and organizations to know and fully understand what it means to be cyber resilient.
What Is Cyber Resilience and How Do I Achieve It?
Cyber resilience is the ability of an organization to enable business acceleration (business resiliency) by preparing for, responding to and recovering from cyber threats. A cyber resilient organization can adapt to known and unknown crises, threats, adversities and challenges. Deloitte tells us that to achieve cyber resilience and build a strong cyber resilience strategy, organizations should first determine risk and develop risk mitigation strategies. Below are four steps to help you achieve cyber resiliency.
4 Steps to Becoming Cyber Resilient
1. Complete a Thorough Technology Assessment
A technology assessment is an important opportunity to stop, look around and see where you are. It indicates where any security vulnerabilities lie, where systems could better communicate with one another and where you can streamline or automate your technology.
2. Perform a Risk Analysis
A risk analysis can identify the most likely internal and external cyber threats to the organization’s ability to conduct business. Use threat and vulnerability analyses to identify weaknesses, such as an insecure network perimeter, that could increase the risk of a cyber attack. Conduct a penetration test or “ethical hacking” to identify, test and highlight vulnerabilities in your security posture.
3. Ask for Professional IT Assistance
A sound security strategy provides unified and reliable protection of your assets from potential threats. Businesses face a demanding and evolving threat landscape. Today, every business is vulnerable to attack, not just major global brands, and the consequences of being unprepared can be catastrophic.
Hire a team of technology and cybersecurity consultants to put solutions and services in place to mitigate threats and protect you from these existential risks.
4. Develop a Cyber Resilience Plan
Structure an effective cyber resilience strategy to ensure critical operational activities can be recovered and returned to normal operation. Determine strategies to minimize the likelihood of a cyber attack occurring. Such activities may include deploying specialized anti-malware software, updating firewall rules and launching an intrusion prevention system.
Enhance cybersecurity and disaster recovery (DR) plans with incident response plans to manage the initial response to a cyber attack. Understand each of these plans complements the other; they should work together rather than at cross-purposes. Cybersecurity, DR and incident response plans must ensure disparate network elements can be quickly recovered, tested for proper operation and put back into production. It’s best to consult internal IT leaders or technology experts for accuracy.
Achieving a viable cyber resilience strategy depends on the smooth collaboration of several preventive, detective and responsive plans. Maintenance of up-to-date, documented and regularly exercised cyber resilience plans can be achieved using a balanced program of activities, including cybersecurity plans, disaster recovery plans, incident response plans, periodic risk analysis initiatives and senior management support.
ATC Can Help Make Your Business Cyber Resilient
Traditional security measures are no longer enough to ensure adequate information security, data security and network security. In fact, many chief information security officers (CISOs) and IT security teams now assume that attackers will eventually gain unauthorized access to their organization. ATC can help you prevent that from happening.
If you’re like most IT leaders, what keeps you up at night isn’t the trouble you can foresee, it’s the trouble that you don’t see coming that can disrupt your operations and IT infrastructure. Contact us today to learn how ATC can help you defend your network infrastructure.
