Why should you protect your digital assets from cyber attacks?
There is an urgent necessity to ensure that you secure your digital assets from all types of cyber threats. If you haven’t yet done it, then it is time to do it right away. There are different types of assets – physical – land, roads, buildings, intangible assets – brands, patents; trademarks; and other assets such as cash on hand, cash in the bank, investments, machinery assets, etc.., Each of these assets need different protection measures. The world has moved into the digital realm, and more assets are being digitized. Your website, the data you store in digital form, your patents, technologies, etc…, are all crucial digital assets that need to be secured.
Cyber Attacks
Your website is your open face to the internet. Cyber criminals will target your digital assets through your website to penetrate your critical system infrastructure to steal confidential financial information and other data. They can impregnate malicious code into unprotected websites. Not only does this affect the website, it also affects visitors to the website. A compromised website loses trust and reputation and will be avoided by potential users/customers. Hackers who gain access to the website steal the data and sell them or they can also hold the website to ransom. There has been a spate of occurrences that have targeted even healthcare institutions – this has led to severe discomfort for patients as they had to be moved to other healthcare centers.
There are hackers of different capabilities and they target large and small organizations and businesses. So, even if you are a small business you must protect your digital assets.
Endpoint Security
Secure your IT infrastructure – servers, desktops and all devices connected to your enterprise network with a robust endpoint security (antivirus) solution. A strong Firewall is a must. Specify a strong password policy and ensure that everybody follows the rules as specified in your policy. Adopting two-factor authentication would be an advisable measure. Further, ensure that all devices are regularly updated with patches for the operating system, applications, and endpoint security. The security software must perform real-time monitoring of the processes and behavior of applications.
Website Security
Secure your website with SSL. And if you need to accept card payments or need to handle sensitive information then you must get an Extended Validation SSL Certificate that offers more trust and authentication to website visitors. SSL encrypts the data transmitted between the webserver and the user’s browser, which ensures privacy and security to the data. There are stringent norms specified by PCI DSS for accepting and storing card payment data. These must be followed and sensitive data must not be stored if not necessary.
Employee Education
An employee/ endpoint is considered to be the weakest link in the security chain. Employees will be targeted with phishing and spearphishing mails, and hence they must be educated on online security.
