As we approach the beginning of another new year, organization’s must construct a new and improved security strategy. In this article we will highlight what AgileBlue considers to be the 5 best practices your business can implement to reduce its cyber risk and avoid becoming a victim of an attack.

1 – Software Updates

The ultimate best practice for preventing cyberattacks today is to keep your software up to date. With the overwhelming amount of patch updates that companies are putting out, it can be easy to let your systems fall behind; Ensuring the software that your company is running is protected is one of the most basic things your organization can do, but it is one of the most important as well. Begin prioritizing patch management and make it a part of your routine system maintenance.

2 – Develop a Business Continuity Plan (BCP)

Failing to plan is the same as planning to fail. Start by asking yourself, “as a business, what CAN’T we afford to lose? How much down time can we withstand?”. Once you have your crown jewels set aside, your organization should then begin to build its cyber defense strategy around protecting what fuels your business. Your companies BCP should include a plan for full data restoration, in the event you experience a breach and need to recover any lost or encrypted data. In this stage, your organization or security team should also develop playbooks on how to respond to different attack methods as well as going through real-life attack simulations.

3 – Prioritize Vulnerability Scanning and Follow-up Routinely

Knowing where your external vulnerabilities are at is crucial in mitigating your organization’s cyber posture. Analyzing your organizations external cyber posture is important; it’s easy for cyber criminals to run a vulnerability scan on your business and learn exactly where your soft spots are to know where to hit you where it hurts. If you fail to complete this step, your external exposure can cascade into something ugly fast. It’s important to conduct scans of your third-parties or partners. Your business is only as secure as its weakest partner.

4 – Keep Count of Inventory Levels

This may seem very basic, but you’d be surprised by the number of organizations that are unaware of the number of assets living in their digital environment. Knowing inventory levels is important because it allows your security personnel to know what there is to protect at large. If your organization is in a position where you’re unaware of the assets it needs to protect, conducting a network scan is a good place to start in seeing what lives in your ecosystem.

5 – Adding Endpoint Protection & the Zero-Trust Model

Basic cyber hygiene should not be forgotten. Adding things like Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) and ensuring that your passwords are complex is the first step in addressing day-to-day cyber hygiene. However, the job is not done there; adding Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) tools enables your security team to track action for each endpoint active in your ecosystem, ensuring that nothing slips through the cracks. In addition, the zero-trust model is a shift of network defenses toward a more comprehensive IT security model that allows organizations to limit access controls to network, applications, and environment without sacrificing efficiency in the workplace; Benefits of implementing the zero-trust model include enhanced security, adapting to the remote work environment, adapting to the switch to a cloud environment, and it simplifying an organization’s security architecture. In short, the zero-trust model trusts no one.

AgileBlue EDR

AgileBlue provides fully managed endpoint protection backed by our 24/7 U.S. based SOC. We can automatically isolate and prevent attacks, drive centralized hunting and detection, and enable interactive response. Our SOCaaS + Endpoint Protection (EDR) helps to extend our monitoring of the cloud, network, and devices by providing an additional layer of security for endpoints. We custom fit AgileBlue to you so you not only get the best technology, but the right technology for your organization. Ready to protect your company for 2022? Request a demo.