Running an online business can be stressful in and of itself, trying to constantly meet the daily demands of your operation, then factor in all the cyber threats to the various components of your site or e-commerce store, including your webpage, customer database, and even your emails, and it can really be stressful, especially if your cyber security resilience is inadequate.
Strong cyber security resilience helps you better defend against various online threats, so you feel better utilizing the internet, which in turn helps provide you with the calm mind you need to focus on running a better business.
What is Cyber Resilience?
Should a cyber attack occur on your business, your ability to handle the intrusion and bounce back determines your level of cyber resilience.
At the same time, it also measures how prepared your business is to secure itself against cyber threats in the first place.
There are two ways to strengthen your cyber resilience, which include implementing appropriate preventative measures and develop an effective response plan in the event of an attack.
Implementing Appropriate Preventative Measures
The first step to strengthening your cyber resilience is to ensure you have the proper security measures in place to protect against cyberattacks before they happen.
This can include implementing a continuous monitoring system, which will enable your IT team to instantly detect risk issues.
And you also need up-to-the-minute threat reporting to assess top security threats and trends, which will enable you to continuously adjust your security measures as needed.
Developing an Effective Response Plan
When developing an effective response plan, begin by pinpointing your businesses’ vulnerabilities, such as issues with your transactional process, which will enable you to discover areas of your operation that are at increased risk of attack.
You will also need to look at the data you use, as well as where is it stored, to help mitigate any risks.
Once you have successfully identified your weaknesses, next implement a response plan that identifies the steps that should be taken should your business encounter an online attack.
The goal of the plan should be to catch the attack, prevent further damage, eliminate the factor that caused the attack, and then restore all processes and services as quickly as possible.
Your response plan should also be reviewed regularly to keep up with ever-changing cyber threats.
Why It’s Important
Reports show that more than half of businesses that are cyber-attacked are forced to shut down soon after because they do not have a suitable prevention plan and response strategy in place, which prevents them from being able to quickly address security issues and get their system back up and running quickly. Therefore, cyber resilience is important if you want to remain in business.
How It can Help Your Business
Cyber resilience helps give you the confidence you need to perform your best, knowing you are protected against internet and network threats and have a plan in place to quickly address any invasions should they occur.
It also helps foster trust with customers who can rest assured their data is safeguarded and that you have strict processes for swiftly handling attacks to help limit any damages.
Lastly, performing a risk assessment also helps you identify any weaknesses in your operations, so you can improve them and run a stronger, more effective business.
Businesses without cyber resilience are at the mercy of hackers, which can damper your spirit as well as your ability to grow. Therefore, you should be diligent about building your cyber resilience to help maintain the well being of both you and your company.
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