Every day thousands of companies in the US get attacked. Most of those attacks come from faraway places like China, or Kirgizstan. Sometimes they get through, and sometimes they even result in a breach. And when that happens it can get really bad. These are the times that will keep you up at night. These times will give you headaches you could not imagine. Having to explain why this happened to your company’s crown jewels, its critical data. And then possibly dealing with liability issues, because of this data breach. But it did not have to be this way.
Be In Front Of The Curve
So when this attack or breach happens what do we do? We react the best that we can. And those reactions aren’t always the best decisions. Not because we don’t know how to make decisions. But we are now making them under duress and in a short time window. And that is the recipe for trouble itself. It is better to be in front, leading and showing your customers, and reports, and supply chain that you are ready for this eventuality and know how to defend. Instead of letting some 25 year old hacker in a faraway place with nothing to lose to pull your strings. And make your life miserable.
A Different Way
A better way is to be prepared. First, to properly protect, come up with an effective security posture. And begin to build on that posture. Include not just your IT but the functional areas of your organization that can and should have a stake in the data that can be lost. Remember that functional area knows more about the criticality of the data and its weaknesses than anyone else. Once your posture is in place then push forward the policy decisions, outlined in a comprehensive security policy, that will make all of this into a solid leaders document dealing with all phases of your cybersecurity. With regular audits and inputs to keep up with the latest security issues as they arise. Then the next time that knucklehead from somewhere you have never heard of tries something you will be ready.