Can you escape Cybersecurity? Maybe No

Suppose you are part of an organization that has any form of an online presence. In that case, you will ultimately have to take initiative to look after the security of the systems, devices, and data. And if driven criminals, who frequently use cyber weaponry initially created by nation-states, do not make you care about your organization’s cybersecurity, regulators will. 

You Are Only as Safe as Your Suppliers 

In today’s interconnected world, many organizations still do not realize how they are intertwined with their suppliers. 

Almost all the software that organisations employ have its storage elsewhere, which is to say they are no longer in their system. These software are either in other servers, data centers, or cloud storages. 

Moreover, as organization’s security is taking a swift shift to the software-as-a-service (SaaS) model, one’s data becomes more vulnerable to unauthorized foreign access, with the endpoint device – that is apparently located in a place, no one possesses control over, posing as a terminal for the access. 

In the wake of the recent trend of supply-chain attacks, or cyberattacks in general, organizations must realize the seriousness of engaging in efficient cybersecurity. 

We are listing below some of the measures an organization can seek, in order to alleviate the risk of malicious cyber activities in their systems: 

1. Recognize The Impact of a Cyberattack on Your Organization 

These are some of the questions an organization must acknowledge answers to.  

• How can a cyberattack affect the organization’s goal? 
• How does it impact the outcomes the organization desires? 
• Can a cyberattack potentially change the outcomes that they aim to achieve on a monthly, quarterly, or annual basis? 
• What are the risks introduced by the cyberattack? 
• What are the organizational assets that are at risk?

If the organization does not acknowledge the impact of a cyberattack, it may assume that ticking only a few boxes of “Ways to boost cybersecurity” would be sufficient in keeping the organization safe. It is until some cybercriminal comes to know about the “crown jewel,” which is critical to your organization but is somehow left vulnerable since the organization ignored its security. 

2. Establish A Cybersecurity Training Process 

An organization can be kept secure by design if cybersecurity is included as early as possible in all business processes. Although, cybersecurity training should not be conducted only once. Security awareness training must be integrated into daily work activities for cybersecurity to become ingrained in the employees' mindsets. 

3. Identify The Potential Misuse of Your System 

In the development roadmap of a company, one may include its customers’ needs. While the organization’s own software are taken no notice of. This way, organizations may not realize how their software could in fact be misused. 

The company can further commence the process of eradicating or minimising possible abuses, once it is recognized. Even at the earliest stages of design, threat modeling can be an effective approach for identifying potential misuse. 

4. Prioritize Cyber Security 

While the buzzword is “shift left,” prioritizing cybersecurity in the initial stage of a product’s life cycle would eventually aid in saving an organization’s time and money. 

While the developers are still adding code into their continuous integration/continuous deployment (CI/CD) platforms, analysis of the issues produced by the code and the third-party libraries used can assist in uncovering issues before they are baked in. 

The remaining vulnerabilities will be eliminated by dynamic inspections of security holes in the finished product. Additionally, having a DevSecOps team that is responsible for cybersecurity is essential when issues are found. 

The organizations thus should be in charge of not only establishing and maintaining code but also resolving any problems with cyber security.