Building a defense mindset in a company implies the development of various conducts and measures. In the current scenario, one of the most important is to create an organizational culture of defense against cyber threats, as these are becoming increasingly sophisticated and robust. As we all know, security breaches in systems and applications can cause hackers to take advantage of it to steal data, paralyze activities, and cause incalculable financial losses.
This has become even more worrisome from the global crisis initiated by the coronavirus pandemic. To get an idea of the scale of the problem, Zscaler researchers noted that in March 2020, there was a 30,000 increase in malicious attacks and malware, which used Covid-19 to hack into devices. Another alarming fact is that, according to Karpersky, phishing attacks against mobile devices increased by 124 in Brazil during the month cited.
Want to know how to protect your organization from these and other cybercrimes? So follow our article!
The main steps to build a defense mindset
As much as a business has highly efficient tools for data protection, it is imperative that all employees are engaged, since they use systems daily and may be responsible, even if unconsciously, for the hacking. According to the study “The Cost of Data Breach“, developed by the Ponemon Institute, 27 of the violations in 2018 occurred due to human failure.
This is due in many cases to the lack of direction on the part of the business, which should raise awareness and indicate actions to be taken on a day-to-day basis to minimize the occurrence of threats. To reverse this situation and protect yourself in increasingly risky times, some strategies are:
Demystify the issue of responsibility
The first step for a company to engage teams in a security culture is to demystify the idea that data protection responsibility is strictly in the IT industry. On the contrary, employees need to understand the role they play in relation to information security.
Another misconception is that cybercrimes only occur with third parties or only target financial information. Many of them aim to get commonly used logins and passwords, or paralyze systems in exchange for redemption, for example. For this, fake emails, links and malicious files, SMS, messaging applications, among other incoming ports are used.
Therefore, it is critical that leaders in all segments understand the vulnerabilities their companies are subject to and encourage employees to take the necessary actions.
Document security policies
Cybersecurity of an organization will hardly be really effective without pre-established policies. For this, the tip is that two documents are created. The first is the official, prepared by the IT sector and signed by all involved, so that the knowledge about the rules and procedures to be followed is proven.
The second can be done informally by the Human Resources department, containing explanations about the company’s security vision and highlighting the importance of good practices.
Promote training
Another essential strategy to increase security and have a defense mindset is to conduct constant training. In this respect, there are different ways to raise employee awareness, from PowerPoint presentations to innovative options such as role-playing games (RPG).
With the use of gamification, teams go through security-related cases and decide how to solve problems in line with company policy. This makes them learn in a playful and, at the same time, effective way.
Another effective tactic is to perform threat simulations, in which employees experience fictitious attacks, developed by the IT industry or external vendors. Thus, they begin to understand how cybercrimes happen in practice and how they can be prevented from occurring.
After the simulation, the company can perform tests with phishing email submissions for everyone who participated and verify how many users clicked on it. Thus, it is possible to analyze whether the qualification was really effective and for whom.
Raise awareness of the importance of reporting problems
Because employees use systems and applications constantly, they can detect potential failures or problems while working. Therefore, they should be instructed to report any occurrences to the IT sector, so that professionals in the area can take action in an agile manner, minimizing risks.
It is important to note that in times when the home office is increasingly present, teams should be aware of the threats they are subject to, as well as the privacy, security and other lessons learned during training that should be followed with the devices at home.
Learn about the bugScout solution
As you’ve seen, you can increase security against cybercrime through simple steps, to the extent that they are critical to ensuring the continuity of the operation and avoiding harm.
Another key strategy is to invest in robust and efficient solutions against virtual attacks. bugScout® is a tool that provides an On-Premise or Cloud platform to help and promote application security.
Through it, it is possible to prevent data leakageby protecting your company’s information by auditing applications. BugScout® can still be integrated into the DevOps lifecycle to help application developers by fostering a secure development culture.
It automates all development mat processes in 35 different languages, verifying all security vulnerabilities and development project issues.
Want to know more how our solution can help your business have a defense mindset and in implementing safe development? So contact one of our experts right now!