Cyber resiliency is a fancy way to say “protect your digital assets.”
Putting it in more relatable terms, digital security is more than just a “core value” you slap on company training materials. Security today has to be backed with a real plan.
For businesses, that requires implementing firewalls and equipment security to support your overall cyber resiliency.
Here’s how.
What is a firewall?
The first time you ran into a firewall was probably when one had to be deactivated to get something on a website to work.
But what is a firewall, exactly? Could you define it in technical terms?
Firewalls are software programs that filter and examine the data coming into your machine from the internet. They’re installed as a first line of defense to stop malicious programs or hackers from gaining access to your device or network.
What is equipment security?
Equipment security, especially in the context of business cyber resiliency, covers a whole slew of protection, surveillance and identification systems running in the background on your machines and devices.
Equipment security protects your PCs, mobile devices, cameras, alarm systems and more.
In short, equipment security is the bigger “umbrella” of how you protect each piece of physical hardware your business uses to run.
4 Tips to Cyber Resiliency
Achieving cyber resiliency starts with the following four tips. Go through these one-by-one and your organization will have its core security covered to protect your brand’s integrity, livelihood, and assets.
1. Recognize where you are
Know where you are right now in terms of risk. You can get your risk level assessed by a proactive IT services provider (like us). Your take-away from this assessment should be a clear list of where you’re most vulnerable.
2. Reduce exposure
Once you know where you’re most vulnerable, that’s where you start to plan your next steps. Firewalls are especially handy to patch vulnerabilities here.
3. Secure assets
Equipment security is particularly handy in this stage, because securing your assets is simultaneously about protecting physical hardware and stopping hackers from getting your “soft assets” (or data).
This is also the step where many organizations learn exactly how urgently they need hardware upgrades.
4. Accelerate the capacity for business recovery
Once you know your vulnerabilities and have patched them the best you can, there’s still the possibility that your systems, hardware or data could be compromised by a malicious attack.
As long as that possibility exists, you need a contingency plan.
Protect yourself by continuous monitoring your network and by building a Business Continuity Plan
Keep reading these 4 tips for device and gadget security to get even more granular in your cyber resiliency.