3 keys to a successful cybersecurity plan for the new year

This year businesses have had to learn how to deal with uncertainty and plan on the fly.  While many executives and their teams have done the best they could, the transition to a predominantly remote workforce puts some new pieces in the forefront when thinking about how to plan for cybersecurity in the new year.

A simplified version of this is as follows:

1.       Securing your remote workforce – Implementing basic cyber hygiene and quarterly cybersecurity training.
2.       Security automation-tool(s) – Helping employees to have secure home offices and/or devices.  This includes having the expertise necessary to maximize the use of these tools, in each household, and ensure efficacy long-term.
3.       Security prevention and response – Having both a cybersecurity plan and an incident response (IR) plan; alongside the expertise necessary to keep the plans up-to-date and practice monthly real-time drills for your IR and BC (business continuity) plans.

While everyone may hope that next year things will go back to normal, especially with a vaccine on its way, it doesn’t change the fact that as it stands things are not changing.  The workforce is primarily remote at this time and businesses need to start planning on the fly now for how they want 2021 to look like from a cybersecurity standpoint.

Some questions that arise to see where you may or may not stand with your business steps for security and resilience in 2021:

• What are you doing to increase the security each household gets so that you know your remote workforce and data are protected?
• How are you ensuring regulatory compliance for your industry and privacy regulations are being met and followed by your workforce?  As you are not working within the office with your team, how do you know if they will have or won’t have documents open for the entire holiday household guests to see?  By accident of course, but still, HIPAA compliance fines, just to name one.

Did you know that a late October cyberattack on the computer systems of the University of Vermont Medical Center is costing the hospital about $1.5 million a day in lost revenue and recovery costs (stated by the CEO in a recent interview)?

How much are you willing to risk while you wait for the vaccine to get everyone back to the office?

With only 37% of organizations definitely having the skills and technology to keep pace with digital projects during the COVID-19 pandemic (according to a recent MuleSoft survey), how are you going to keep that digital space secure from hackers?

We know how hard cybersecurity can be, we’ve been in the business and helping businesses with it going on 20 years soon.

Here’s how we can help you get your new year cybersecurity plan going (based on the three-step plan we listed above):

1.       Secure your remote workforce

• Basic cyber hygiene – https://training.ncxgroup.com/free/
• Quarterly cybersecurity training – https://training.ncxgroup.com/lite/#training

2.       Security automation-tool(s)

• Secure home offices and/or devices – In addition to antivirus software, firewall and securing the router, here are training videos network security needs: Home and VPN Security Training Video – https://training.ncxgroup.com/share/remote/1 and Public Wi-Fi Security Training Video – https://training.ncxgroup.com/share/wifi/1.
• Ensure efficacy long-term – NCX Group’s MyCSO services provide the technology and manage it 24x7x365 for you. Read more: https://ncxgroup.com/services/mycso-services/#.WMFlWxjMwUE.

3.       Security prevention and response

• Cybersecurity plan – Get a free assessment to check where you stand first: https://training.ncxgroup.com/free/#assessment
• Incident response plan – https://ncxgroup.com/services/incident-response/

You can always get in touch to talk about your specific cybersecurity needs person-to-person, the human touch will never be obsolete, and it can actually help clarify so much with the intricacies of protecting your business.

Schedule your free consultation today!

Photo courtesy of PhotoHouse