So many pieces go into building an enterprise. But more and more, those pieces are becoming digital. What does this mean? Organizations need to consider cybersecurity as a top priority. Here are five enterprise cybersecurity best practices to follow.
Have a Firewall
A firewall is one of the most critical elements to have built into an enterprise cybersecurity outfit. But what is a firewall, exactly? You’ve likely heard the term before but might not know a precise definition.
The goal of a firewall is to protect your network from any unwanted intrusions. Think of it kind of like the walls around a castle. Your firewall needs to be able to protect your valuable data from potential threats out in the wild.
There are many ways to configure a firewall. Some are pretty basic. But for an enterprise, it makes sense to go well beyond the minimum requirement. This means beefing things up on both the hardware and software ends of things. These are a few things enterprises can employ to help strengthen their firewall:
- Proxy servers
- Web application firewalls
- Packet filtering and gateway implementation
- Third-party management and firewall packages
Build an Employee Education Program
Employee education needs to be an integral part of an enterprise’s cybersecurity plan. There are a few reasons why it’s so critical to help employees understand the importance of cybersecurity, and what to do in certain scenarios.
Social engineering remains an inseparable piece of cybercrime. About 90 percent of all attacks are initiated by a phishing email. Phishing and spear-phishing emails are so dangerous because they can seem totally legit. After all, people wouldn’t follow through with them if they were under the impression they were being scammed.
It’s essential you teach employees what they need to look for when identifying potentially dangerous emails. Tell them to use precaution if they’re ever in doubt about the legitimacy of something that comes to their inbox.
Consider Outside Monitoring and Vulnerability Management
Enterprises are in a unique position when it comes to cybersecurity. They obviously have more resources than smaller businesses to combat threats. But they are also far bigger targets due to greater levels of data and potential vulnerabilities.
Using third-party security-as-a-service platforms can be a smart move on the enterprise level. Even though most large organisations are going to have a full IT department, having all cybersecurity in-house can potentially lead to an echo chamber effect. One of those is penetration testing that helps in answering vital questions in regards to security standards and vulnerabilities. Pentesting uses various penetration testing methodologies that are flexible enough to account for different organizations and their requirements. But also, should have a strong foundation for encompassing all the critical areas and aspects. Getting vulnerability management tools from the outside can give an extra layer of protection.
Have Back-Ups
Backing up data and applications is one of the most basic ways to guard against cybersecurity threats. Certain cyber threats, such as ransomware, can hold your data hostage in exchange for a payment. This kind of threat should not be tolerated on any level. Enterprises have the resources to securely backup data to secure offline warehouses, or directly to various cloud destinations.
No matter how your organisation decides it wants to run its back-ups, just make sure they’re part of the process. You don’t want to get caught in a situation where you could lose important information.
Keep Permissions Limited to Those Who Need Them
Permissions on enterprise applications and networks is a big deal. Extending permissions to more people can streamline certain aspects of operations. However, doing this can also be a major security risk.
There are two important ways to look at this. Most of your employees are honest people who want the best for the enterprise. But they’re still people who make mistakes. Having more people with sensitive permissions means more opportunity for error. Furthermore, there are actors in every enterprise that aren’t one of the good guys; who just want to get permissions to cause trouble or scam the organisation. Keeping things locked down can limit the chances of someone like this infiltrating your applications or networks.
There’s a lot to think about when building an enterprise cybersecurity plan. These top concepts are things that all organisations should keep in mind when doing so.
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