Modern businesses have a lot to juggle when it comes to cybersecurity. There are threats everywhere you look today. But it isn’t enough to implement lackluster cybersecurity systems.
A successful business must stay on top of digital security and often spend large amounts of resources improving protection and security for their digital infrastructures. Companies in every industry are staying on their toes to avoid the costly consequences of a data breach by installing firewalls, encryption methods, and anti-malware measures.
And even the most secure companies can fall victim to cyber-attacks. That’s why your organization must focus on cyber resiliency training. Because when attacks take place, your company needs the right systems in place to bounce back quickly.
Cyber resilience vs. cybersecurity
Cyber resilience and cybersecurity are often conflated with one another. Although the two concepts are very closely related, they aren’t the same thing. Fortunately, the difference between the two is relatively easy to understand.
Cybersecurity encompasses everything you do to protect your systems, people, and data from active cyber threats. It includes security technology as well as best practices, access policies, and education. The core objective of cybersecurity is to prevent a cyber incident from occurring in the first place — if only by making a business such an inconvenient target that threat actors look elsewhere.
Cyber resilience, on the other hand, involves what you do during and after a cyber incident. It focuses on your business’s ability to respond to, remediate, and ultimately withstand disruptive events and attacks. The core objective of cyber resilience is to mitigate the damage done by threat actors if they manage to break through your first line of defense.
How important is cyber resilience?
Both cybersecurity and cyber resilience are necessary for modern businesses, no matter their size. We’ve all heard about massive breaches at major companies like Facebook, Twitter, and T-Mobile. These are all multi-billion-dollar companies with (at least theoretically) massive security budgets.
If it can happen to them, it can happen to you — there’s no such thing as being too small to be targeted.
As a matter of fact, there’s evidence to suggest that smaller businesses may now be at greater risk of experiencing a cyberattack. On the plus side, business owners are at least aware of this fact, with 60 percent of respondents in a recent US Chamber of Commerce survey indicating that they feel cybersecurity threats are their biggest concern. And if that’s not enough to convince you?
Just have a look at some of the companies hacked so far in 2024:
- Trello. 15 million records leaked due to poor security.
- Frontier Communications. Report filed with SEC, details still emerging.
- United Health. $872 million loss due to ransomware.
- Fujitsu. Suffered a cyberattack resulting in the likely compromise of personal information.
- International Monetary Fund. State-sponsored threat actors compromised 11 internal email accounts.
Based on the above, one thing should be clear. It doesn’t matter where you work or what you do. It’s not enough to rely solely on prevention.
When someone asks you what you’ll do in the worst-case scenario, you need to be able to answer them.
What can I do?
Understand that the goal of a cyber resilience program is to keep your business functional during an attack so that your employees can still access the resources they need. You also want to set up additional measures to keep internal data secure.
Here are some basic strategies to help you get started:
Facilitate Communication Between IT and Management
Cyber resilience training isn’t a general skill most employees in your organization will have, so the IT department must communicate potential security risks to upper management clearly.
Know how to define risk and show how costly an attack can be to the company’s bottom line. Data breaches will lead to lost productivity, which will translate into lost revenue, and less profit.
Backup Your Data
Every business needs backups of internal data on a separate network in case security is compromised. Daily automatic backups are ideal, but you should use a weekly manual backup policy at the very least.
This will guarantee that your data is both safe and accessible in the event of a breach.
Educate Your Employees
Employee negligence is often the weakest link in a company’s digital security. Cyber resilience isn’t a job for only the IT department. Everyone must be up-to-date on incident prevention and response, so invest in virtual training labs for every employee.
Taking Advantage of Training Labs
The best way to train for cyber resilience is to simulate real-world scenarios where data breaches occur. That’s why most businesses opt for virtual cybersecurity training, which allows employees to practice incident response in a safe and simulated situation.
In a virtual cybersecurity lab environment, employees practice containing, investigating, and rectifying cybercriminal attacks. This makes them calmer and more prepared in the event of a real breach.
Online virtual instructor-led training also come with its own benefits over in-classroom training. Classes can be taken from any location at any time through the Internet. This reduces the cost of setting up physical training labs and makes scheduling training sessions much easier.
Cyber Resilience Is a Must-Have for Any Organization
Cyber resilience isn’t optional today. It’s just as crucial to modern businesses as cybersecurity. Your company needs to have systems in place to prevent and recover from cyber-attacks.
Managers should make cyber resilience a priority for all employees in environments where both small and large organizations are in the crosshairs. Virtual training is a cost-effective and potent way of keeping everybody up-to-date.
Are you interested in seeing how cyber resilience training can help your organization? Schedule a demo with Cloud Share today to learn more!
Updated June 2024
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