Cybersecurity Awareness Month, week one: Be cyber smart

Cybersecurity Awareness Month, taking place every October, was initially created as a collaborative effort between the US government and industry leaders to ensure that citizens had the resources they needed to stay safer and more secure online.

Since its inception 18 years ago, the campaign has become popular worldwide to create awareness, and in South Africa the campaign has reached popularity too.

With an ever-growing onslaught of data breaches and security compromises, companies around the world are beginning to ask themselves not if, but when, they will become its next victim.

The truth is, regardless of a business’s size or resources, the evolving resourcefulness of cyber criminals see them evade even the seemingly best-protected infrastructures. And for those who think the rate of compromises is going to decrease in coming years, the numbers are not in their favour.

As cyber criminals resort to more sophisticated levels of ransomware and crippling malware, businesses literally cannot afford to have sub-par security.

Managed security service providers (MSSPs) vs in-house security

To avoid potential disasters, organisations often feel compelled to hire and train their own in-house security team; adding to this challenge is the global shortage of specialist security skills. This creates burgeoning unbudgeted expenses and often results in inadequate cyber security.

The best option is to partner with an MSSP that provides expert oversight of a company’s security systems – and, in the best-case scenario, is managed remotely over the cloud.

The menu of services that a good MSSP offers includes managed firewall, intrusion detection, virtual private network, vulnerability scanning and anti-viral services. MSSPs also use high-availability security operation centres to provide 24/7 services.

Be cyber smart – top five tips to consider

1. Security risks can be identified before they become issues. Make sure security events from multiple sources are correlated to identify sophisticated attacks.
2. Free up your management and personnel to focus on what they do best, knowing security is taken care of.
3. Avoid the costs of hiring expensive cyber security experts and consider replacing expensive multivendor products with a consolidated Microsoft solution. This will provide you with all the functionality you already own and is enabled and used to its full potential.
4. Avoid security spend eating your entire IT budget.
5. For improved compliance, a number of reports and dashboards can provide an up-to-date view of your security stance. Speak to your MSSP for auditor-ready reports on a monthly basis to prove to stakeholders that you are on top of security and compliance.