On episode 5 of our Tech Takeaways, Paul, Jason and Wayne discuss the importance of cyber resilience. While cyber security is a significant concern for all businesses, few have specific plans to deal with the impact of a cyber-attack. A cyber resilience strategy is a key part of knowing how to react if a cyber-attack happens. Let’s go back through what was talked about in the episode and find out how you can build a good framework to protect your assets.
What is Cyber Resilience?
Cyber resilience planning concerns what a business will do when/if its systems are breached. Where software and endpoint solutions work to mitigate attacks before they get inside a business’s systems, cyber resilience plans help defend against threats that fully manifest. It includes a response procedure, i.e. what will the business do, which individuals are involved in the response, and what are their roles.
Investing in cyber security measures is still important. However, businesses should accept that cyber security measures cannot reduce threat risk to zero. Cyber resilience planning accounts for the event where the business’s other security measures fail.
Advice for Being Cyber Resilient
Risk Assessment
Make a list of key systems that could be impacted by potential cyber-attacks. Ask yourself, ‘how does my business operate if this system goes down?’. Criminals are likely to target the most important systems to maximise the effect on the business.
Define Recovery Plan
It should be clear who in the organisation is leading the response, which systems need to be recovered first, and what methods can be used. This creates a solid framework to get your business back online as quickly as possible.
Employee Awareness
A business’s employees can be both a threat and the first line of defense. However, the latter can only be achieved through appropriate cyber resilience training. Ensure that all users possess an understanding of how cyber-attacks can manifest, along with the knowledge needed to prevent security risks. It’s subsequently a good idea to simulate cyber threats to allow teams of employees to practice.
Conclusions
If your business doesn’t have a cyber resilience plan in place, a successful cyber-attack will be much more damaging and take much longer to recover from. On the other hand, having a comprehensive cyber resilience plan allows you respond to and recover from threats quickly. This lets your business maintain day-to-day operations despite outside influence.
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