Lessons About Cybersecurity That You’ve Learned Because of Pandemics

Because of the coronavirus, countless events, gatherings, conferences, and other social gatherings have been cancelled. Since most of the technology is made by China, the supply chains have been in put in jeopardy since the outbreak began. It appears like even the tech industry can’t avoid getting drawn into the gravity of COVID-19.

Although this pandemic is not hitting everybody yet with deadly force, over time, it may lead to some major disruptions for various individuals and organizations. This is not to downplay the pandemic’s severity, but there are a few useful parallels to how you can manage cyberthreats.

Containment Isn’t Perfect

Issuing a quarantine is among the first moves during an outbreak to contain the spread of the virus. Simply put, nobody is allowed to leave their homes so that the threat would be bottled up. However, quarantines tend to leak and the virus will start to spread anyway. Containment methods leak, just like the most common cybersecurity controls.

You need to evaluate what is involved in the pandemic. It’s just a range of strategies that are applied in different ways. Infected individuals are isolated, which is just like how bot detection and anti malwaretools lock down certain machines. Specific quarantine guidelines are issued on geographic areas, which are similar to how you use network segmentation through firewalls. Logging and monitoring is similar to contract tracing while a travel ban is like decryption and traffic inspection to prevent threats from gaining access to your network.

Does this mean you should get rid of your firewall? Of course not. Quarantine is not expected to prevent a pandemic right away. Just like firewalls, these controls are all about reducing and managing the threat. This could mean cutting bock the flood to a river. It could mean providing you with more data about the velocity, size, and the nature of the ongoing threat. Containment could give you time so that you could prepare your other defenses.

Time Is A Precious Resource

In cases when threats are affecting crucial assets and services, time is your most important resource. Whether it is a pandemic or a online threat, every second have to count. Tools such as containment will provide you with more time. However, you also have to use other tools. You need intelligence to inform you on what they look like, what threats are coming, and what assets may be affected. You need thoughtful analysis and data to show how you can make use of your time. You have to plan, and then prepare, as well as practice ahead of time so that you will have the correct responses and tools prepare when something goes crazy.

A part of the needed preparation and making use of your time well is to ensure that the executives are briefed on the possible threats and the potential consequences. This too, will need time and during a crisis, you might not have enough to explain or to correct misconceptions.

Call SpartanTec, Inc. in Fayetteville for more information about cybersecurity.

SpartanTec, Inc.
Fayetteville, NC 28304
(910) 745-7776
http://manageditservicesfayetteville.com

Cities Served:
Fayetteville, Spring Lake, Hope Mills, Dunn, Aberdeen, Southern Pines, Pinehurst, Sanford, Clinto

Cybersecurity’s Top Priorities Amid The Coronavirus Pandemic

Chief information security officers or CISOs have two main priorities as the world continue to face today’s global health crisis. These are maintaining business continuity and protecting against new online threats. Listed below the most effective cybersecurity strategic principles that could help address these concerns.

The amazing efforts of several businesses to protect their employees and serve clients during the coronavirus crisis have also raised their exposure to online threats. The large scale move to work from home, increased activity on client facing networks, as well as greater utilization of online services provide fresh opportunities, which cybercriminals managed to exploit quickly.

Addressing The Challenge

Although several CISOs as well as other executive have turned to their experience with previous crises as to how they’ll respond to the initial stages of the outbreak, the unpredictable duration and vast scale of this global health crisis is extremely unusual. There’s no playbook that chief information security officers can turn to for guidance. Nevertheless, the CISOs as well as senior cybersecurity managers have provided a list of practices that can be helpful during this time.

Focus

The technology and security risk departments should focus on supporting the appropriate capabilities, service rollouts, as well as features that are crucial to the business operations.

Test

In case your organization has any kind technology or security risk plans like plans for business continuity, talent succession, vendor succession, and disaster recovery, then you should test them immediately. In case your business does not have enough plans set in place, create one and make sure to test them out right away. You should know if the risk response of your organization is efficient and effective.

Monitor

Think about mustering all of the available resources to assist you with the monitoring, which allows risk response as well as recovery to start. Stepped up monitoring aspects may include remote monitoring of the collaboration tools, monitoring networks for the novel and new strains of malware, as well as monitoring staff as well as end points to catch information related incidents before they become an operational risk.

Balance

Teams taking care of cybersecurity Fayetteville are most likely to get a lot of urgent cybersecurity rule exception requests that will let teams somewhere else in the firm to get the work done.

Although CISOs have a tendency to deny these requests to prevent risks, they should also remember the importance of ensuring business continuity during a challenging and fluid time for their coworkers. In order to support the continued operations, CISOs have to endure some high risk during the short term by providing waivers and relaxing a few control temporarily. 

An accommodating strategy would encourage cowokers to create smart risk trade offs. Having said that, CISOs must never let such exceptions to weaken the risk posture of the organization permanently. In case the chief information security officers provide waivers or if they relax the controls, they must establish a formal assessment, review the processes, and execute time limits to encourage reevaluation on a periodic basis or restrict the exceptions to specific user groups.

Call SpartanTec, Inc. if you need the help of an expert IT team to assist you in setting up the most effective cybersecurity measures for your company.

SpartanTec, Inc.
Fayetteville, NC 28304
(910) 745-7776
http://manageditservicesfayetteville.com

Cities Served:
Fayetteville, Spring Lake, Hope Mills, Dunn, Aberdeen, Southern Pines, Pinehurst, Sanford, Clinto