Do you know how cybersecurity incidents affect your company's business?

As companies have moved to remote work during the pandemic and society increasingly relies on digital channels and online services, the importance of cybersecurity continues to grow. We have recently read news about a number of cyber attacks on organizations. Ransomware, in particular, has been a nuisance for companies both large and small. Not even critical infrastructure organizations, such as hospitals, have been safe.

Ransomware spreads quickly throughout a digital business and may, at worst, even pose a serious threat to business continuity. The losses in recent cases have risen up to tens of millions of euros. New international incidents are arising on a weekly basis.

How can you secure your company's digital business? 

Have you considered what would happen and how you would respond if a serious cyber incident took your organization by surprise? Would you even be able to continue your business operations without your business applications? Have you prepared for such a situation by organizing cybersecurity exercises or making business continuity plans?

Companies’ operational activities have become digital and increasingly dependent on various technologies. For this reason, cybersecurity is a crucial aspect of every company’s business operations. It is also vital to understand that as business becomes digital, so do risks. Consequently, operating environment awareness – the advance assessment of cyber threats and risks as well as cyber incident monitoring – should be a central part of cybersecurity and business continuity management.

At its best, business continuity assurance is a competitiveness factor that ensures operational continuity and recovery in the event of extensive security incidents in digital service platforms. 

Organizations prepared for cyber incidents recover faster and more efficiently 

Here are some tips on how to prepare for a cybersecurity incident:  

• Analyze and systematically document your operating environment.
• Prioritize the key business services and processes. Describe their workflow and reliance on IT services, as well as details on databases, servers, and support and operational service organizations. 
• Identify the main tasks that must continue. Draw up business continuity plans for these to ensure continuing operations in the event of an incident. 
• Arrange exercises. These can be technical, focusing on restoring the operating environment, or include crisis exercises for management to practice decision-making, situational awareness, communication, and processes. Such exercises reveal the strengths and weaknesses of the organization and strengthen internal cooperation between units and people, not forgetting stakeholder communication with the authorities, customers, and the media, for example. Practice also helps identify weaknesses in operating models and processes.  
• Educate your staff on cybersecurity awareness and make them the strongest link in your organization against cyber attacks. 
• Learn from real incidents and use them to continuously improve your continuity plans. 

Start preparing now, if you have not done so already!

Organize a cybersecurity exercise to reveal what needs improving in your organization.

Join Nixu's webinar on October 13, 2020 to learn more about how to build a strong security culture.

See also other Nixu webinars and the tips for Cybersecurity Month.

And do not forget to sign up for the Nixu Newsletter, so you can keep track of what's happening in cybersecurity.