Cybercrime is on the rise. More than 80% of all organizations have been victim to one or more successful cyberattacks in the past twelve months. That’s up from 78% in 2019 and 77% in 2018.
It is increasingly important that your organization take a more proactive approach to data security. If you wait until you’re attacked to respond, it will be too late.
Why You Need to Be More Proactive to Secure Your Data
When it comes to cybersecurity, you can take a reactive or a proactive approach. With a reactive approach, you wait until your organization experiences a data breach or cyber attack, then you take steps to deal with it. With a proactive approach, you enact security measures in advance to try to prevent breaches and attacks.
Not surprisingly, the proactive approach is more effective and less costly than simply reacting when bad things happen. When all you do is react, you have a significantly greater risk of being attacked – and suffering the financial and structural damages of an attack. The global cost of cyber attacks is expected to hit $6 trillion this year.
When you proactively prepare for potential cyber attacks, you reduce your risk. A proactive approach sets up defenses to protect against attackers and allows you to be ready with a plan for what to do if you are attacked. You won’t be caught by surprise.
Bottom line, it’s much more difficult – and more costly – to recover from a data breach or cyber attack than it is to plan to prevent one. In the world of cybersecurity, an ounce of prevention is demonstrably more effective than a pound of cure.
5 Ways to Be Proactive with Data Security
There are many things you can do to be more proactive with your organization’s data security. Here are five of them.
1. Inventory All of Your Assets
Before you can enact stronger data security, you need to know what you need to secure. That means conducting a thorough inventory of all of your data assets. Detail what data is stored where and who has access to it. You should also inventory your physical IT assets – servers, routers, computers, and mobile devices, both on-premise and remote. Only when you know what you have can you determine how to best protect it.
2. Assess Your Security Measures
You also need to know what cybersecurity measures you currently have in place. Assess all of your current security tools and processes and how they’re protecting your digital assets.
You should then conduct a cybersecurity risk assessment. This inspects your system and data to determine how secure it is against various types of threats. You can do this either internally or hire a third-party to conduct the audit. It’s important to understand both your strengths and weaknesses, so you know where you need to improve your cybersecurity efforts.
3. Train Your Employees
The strongest data security plan can fall apart when just one employee clicks a malicious link. Phishing is a growing security risk, accounting for 1 in every 4,200 emails. It’s essential that you train your employees – all of them, at every level – on the latest data security procedures. You want to instill in your entire workforce an understanding and respect for data security. Place a special emphasis on securing personal devices, working securely from remote locations, and guarding against phishing and other social engineering schemes.
4. Think Like the Enemy
When it comes to protecting your valuable data, it’s important to know who might want to steal it and why. When you can get inside the heads of potential malicious actors, you gain a better understanding of how that data may be targeted and what techniques might be used.
5. Use Encryption
Raw data can easily be viewed by any malicious actor who breaches your defenses. If you encrypt that data, however, even the most determined hackers can’t view any data they access. To thwart cybercriminals, you must encrypt both your stored data and your ongoing communications. Even better, employ end-to-end encryption so that messages can’t be viewed while in transit.
Let Wickr Secure Your Organization’s Communications
When you’re looking for a secure communications platform, Wickr is the smart choice. Wickr provides secure messaging, audio and video conferencing, file sharing, and collaboration tools, all protected by end-to-end encryption and a zero trust infrastructure. Wickr is ideal for all types and sizes of organizations, including large enterprises. Contact us to discover how Wickr can help you embrace a more proactive approach to secure data with the industry’s leading secure communications platform.
Contact us today to learn more about Wickr’s secure communications and collaboration solution!