Here’s What Every Company Needs to Approach in Terms of Cybersecurity!
While business owners face a multitude of challenges on their way to success all the time, 2020 and 2021 have surely brought some new ones: how to deal with the Covid-19 prevention methods, how to protect their employees, how to keep the business going, and so on. Cybersecurity is another aspect that moved into the spotlight since many cybercriminals took advantage of the current situation and all the changes that arose.
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Before diving into the most sensitive cybersecurity topics you should focus on for the rest of 2021, let us first clarify what cybersecurity refers to.
As defined by the Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency, cybersecurity is “the art of protecting networks, devices, and data from unauthorized access or criminal use and the practice of ensuring confidentiality, integrity, and availability of information.”
2021 Cybersecurity Priorities: Data Protection
A cybersecurity incident, especially one that includes data leaks, can lead to money loss, time loss, brand damage, clients and partners loss, and even fines or legal suits for not respecting compliance regulations. For this reason, it’s important to be able to prevent the dangers that cause data breaches. The most important ones are ransomware and phishing.
Ransomware refers to
a type of malware (malicious software) which encrypts all the data on a PC or mobile device, blocking the data owner’s access to it. After the infection happens, the victim receives a message that tells him/her that a certain amount of money must be paid (usually in Bitcoins) in order to get the decryption key. Usually, there is also a time limit for the ransom to be paid.
Phishing is a technique used by cybercriminals to gather users’ sensitive information which relies mostly on email. The attackers try to make the victims trust them and provide the confidential data they desire by pretending to be trustworthy entities and sending (more or less) carefully crafted emails.
2021 Cybersecurity Priorities: Identity and Access Management
Identity and access management are related to concepts along the lines of privileged accounts, privileged access, the zero-trust model, and the principle of least privilege. To keep it simple, prioritizing identity and access management means making sure that everyone is who he/she says he/she is and that it only has access to the accounts and applications that are absolutely necessary for them to accomplish their daily tasks.
Not having a good identity or privileged access management solution in place will leave you extremely vulnerable to insider threats, data breaches, and various cyberattacks.
2021 Cybersecurity Priorities: Vulnerability Management
In cybersecurity, the term vulnerability refers to certain behaviors or conditions of products, systems, or services that implicitly or explicitly violate security policies. Vulnerabilities can and have been exploited by cybercriminals, with serious consequences.
The stages of vulnerability management include vulnerability scanning, finding vulnerabilities, checking them, and then mitigation and patching (= improving/updating the problematic software).
2021 Cybersecurity Priorities: BYOD / Remote Work
Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) Policy refers to the trend of employees using their personal devices to connect to their companies’ networks and accomplish their daily endeavors, and it is of particular interest in these times when WorkFromHome has become, for many of us, the new normal.
Although it has its benefits, BYOD implies higher security risks: cross-contamination of data, lack of management and outsourced security, insecure use and device infection, human error and mixing business with pleasure, data leakage and GDPR concerns, phishing, adware, spyware, and so on.
2021 Cybersecurity Priorities: Cybersecurity Awareness
It’s essential for companies to invest in cybersecurity awareness training. Apart from using software solutions carefully designed to address the multitude of aspects we have discussed so far, cybersecurity awareness is the only thing that can help you keep your company safe. Every employee must know what are the dangers that lurk in the dark (or not so dark, because sometimes they hide in plain sight) corners of the Internet, what to do and what not to do to maintain the correct cybersecurity posture.
2021 Cybersecurity Priorities: Final Thoughts
Disregarding the size of the affected company, a cybersecurity incident can lead to money and time loss, reputation damage, clients and partners loss, and even fines or lawsuits. Although presented separately, all the aspects mentioned above as priorities are linked and all of them are necessary if you want to avoid problems.
In order to prevent cybersecurity incidents and stay away from their unpleasant consequences, every company needs to have a layered defense in place, an incident response plan, and invest in security awareness training and quality software solutions.
Guest article written by: 
Elena Georgescu is a Communication and PR Officer at Heimdal™ Security, a leading European provider of cloud-based cybersecurity solutions. At Heimdal™, she combines her passion for reading and writing with her desire to make a positive impact on the world – through education. Elena can be reached online at https://www.linkedin.com/in/elenafeliciageorgescu/ and at the Heimdal™ Security’s website – https://heimdalsecurity.com/en/.
Hey!
That was a very good article. I just started my own online business and I use your formula/process. And you won’t believe I am getting revenue from them.
Excellent post about a very important topic! I think managing vulnerabilities is always crucial for your website safety