A Multi-layered Security Approach Mitigates Your Risks
How much could a cybersecurity attack cost your company? According to IBM’s annual research, the average data breach cost reached almost $5 million in 2022. In addition, it takes an average of 207 days to identify a breach and 70 days to contain it. The longer a breach remains undetected, the more significant the financial impact will be.
Studies have shown that human factors were involved in more than 85% of these breaches. These human errors can result from phishing attacks, decipherable passwords, downloading infected software, and even email errors. The types of human errors are skill-based and decision-based errors. Skill-based errors are minor errors that occur while carrying out a daily task and are often the result of negligence due to inattentiveness, tiredness, and distraction. On the other hand, decision-based errors are ones where the user makes a wrong decision. These errors result from a lack of knowledge, skills, and information about a specific circumstance.
Human error can only occur where there is an opportunity to do so, and as such, it is essential to eliminate opportunities for error as much as possible. End-users will continue making mistakes if they don’t know the risks and proper actions, meaning that Cybersecurity training for employees is a must.
Changing your technology, routines, and standard practices will help reduce the opportunity for human error and initiate your mitigation efforts.
- Deploy malware prevention software and keep it updated. It would be best to have software that protects devices from viruses, spyware, ransomware, and phishing scams. Make sure it’s updated regularly.
- Require the use of strong passwords and two-factor authentication. The easiest way to break into a business network is by guessing passwords.
- Back up data regularly. It’s best to have multiple backups of company data. This way, if you become the victim of various cyberattacks, you’re not out in the cold.
- Limit employee access. It makes sense to segment and limit employees to only the systems and data they must access. If tight access controls are maintained, you’ll limit the damage that any single user can do to your network security.
Cybersecurity is a full-time job, so your approach to guarding against attacks cannot be limited to quarterly or annual training. Your employees are valuable assets; you need to invest in them constantly to minimize vulnerabilities and employ various approaches to keep your team current on new and existing threats and actions to mitigate risks. Remember that employees are not the only failure point; the security and training infrastructure (or lack thereof) around them also creates risk.
Without employee participation in the process and the entire organization buying into the goal of keeping your business safe from cybercrime, there is no way to establish a risk management strategy that will work in the long run. Businesses must start the process by building a culture in which employee accountability and involvement are encouraged and expected.
A multi-layered approach is required to implement a robust cybersecurity program, and developing a culture that values cybersecurity will make it a priority for your team or department and encourage employees to be diligent about mitigating risk.
Multi-layered security is a proactive approach that employs unique elements that serve a particular purpose and engage in specific functions to safeguard operations, IT infrastructure, and services. A multi-layered approach ensures that each component is a preventive strategy defending a particular access point. Each layer focuses on securing a region that hackers or viruses might compromise. These layers work together to fortify an organization’s overall network and security and dramatically reduce the likelihood of a successful attack or security breach.
A robust multi-layered security strategy includes the following:
Physical Security
Limiting access to networking devices, computers, and other gadgets will dramatically reduce hackers’ chances of entering your IT infrastructure. Enterprises should retain logs to track who comes in and out of server rooms and may even incorporate other credentials and biometric information for automatic ID verification.
Network Security
This security layer protects the corporate network with a firewall, detection mechanism (IDS), 24/7 remote monitoring, authentication protocols, and other mechanisms that protect the flow of information across the enterprise. The key to network security is establishing a sense of spatial awareness that enables security professionals to link threats to vulnerabilities in protection. Security professionals may utilize sophisticated technologies to identify problems and protect them from gaining network access.
Endpoint Security
Each device has many possible vulnerabilities, so it is essential to protect them with endpoint security. Preferred strategies for reinforcing this layer are deploying device-wide and cloud-controlled antivirus programs and employing only IT division corporate apps.
Application Protection
Applications deployed interactively must also adhere to security best practices. Access control mechanisms provide approved end users with just the resources they are permitted to utilize. This method is known as the principle of least privilege. Many organizations turn to security specialists to protect their applications using third-party technologies to analyze data throughput for suspicious behavior.
A cybersecurity audit is the first step toward identifying and mitigating security risks. As you look ahead, consider what processes you can automate to save time and remove the threat of human error, and realize that a multi-layered approach is required to harden your technology infrastructure and protect your organization from a cyberattack. XETA Group can help you put the proper security and compliance capabilities in place to manage risk effectively, spanning processes, people, and technology.