The Top 5 Tips to Ensure a Secure Workplace

October is Cybersecurity Awareness Month. In celebration, we’ve already compiled advice from InfoSec professionals, solution providers, and researchers on how to prioritize cybersecurity in your business.

Why focus so much on Cybersecurity Awareness Month? For one simple reason: cybersecurity is not an abstract ideal. The difference between a digitally secure workplace and an unsecured one can be millions of dollars in fines, lawsuits, network downtime, and threat remediation.  

Indeed, enterprises are already facing the consequences of failing to create a secure workplace. A recent study sponsored by endpoint security vendor Barkly by the Ponemon Institute found 64% of enterprises have suffered an attack on their endpoints causing a compromise within the past year. The same study found a 42% increase in data breach costs year-over-year.  

With the stakes so high, how can your enterprise become a digitally secure workplace?     

Top 5 Tips to Ensure a Secure Workplace

Here are five tips to ensure a secure workplace from Mike Hendrickson, Vice President of Technology & Developer Products at Skillsoft:

•  Increase Talent of Current Team: Give your staff the skills to keep pace with evolving cyber threats. IT and cybersecurity leaders need to look at training as a tool to help retain, attract, reward and re-skill staff.
• Certifications: Security-related certifications should be a key part of any security training program. Certifications reduce risks by helping employees stay on top of the changing IT security landscape while validating their skills and knowledge.
• Continuous Learning: The IT domain—and security, in particular—is a discipline that requires a commitment to continuous learning. Organizations must dedicate the time and resources to stay abreast of new developments.
• Employee Best Practices: Remind employees to avoid fishy links, don’t provide personal information to unknown sources and not to connect to unfamiliar WiFi (particularly in public places)
• Create Awareness: Security must always be top of mind. Generate awareness with weekly emails/tips, training resources and ensure it is a topic of discussion throughout the year.

A Few Bonus Tips to A Secure Workplace

Mr. Hendrickson’s tips are invaluable to the modern business or enterprise. The most we can hope to do is tack on a few additional tips to make the transformation into a secure workplace all the smoother.

Replace Your Legacy Solutions: We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again—legacy antivirus is inadequate for protecting your enterprise against modern threats. The same principle applies to legacy solutions in every section of your cybersecurity. If you do increase the cybersecurity talent, having them work with an outdated solution will hamper their efforts.

Instill In Your Employees a Sense of Purpose: This builds off of Mr. Hendrickson’s tip on creating awareness. The secret of a secure workplace is to make it a shared mission—one in which everyone participates and contributes to actively. Awareness is one half of the equation, but employees need a motivation to integrate that awareness into their everyday actions.

Identify Your Risks: Not every enterprise is created equal in size, industry, or mission. Neither are the threats plaguing your individual business. Part of having a secure workplace is to sharpen your focus onto protecting your assets and databases against the threats most likely to strike your network.

Thanks again to Mike Hendrickson of Skillsoft for his time, expertise, and contribution to this article!  

Other Resources: 

Key Findings – The Gartner Unified Threat Management 2018 Magic Quadrant

You Need to Hire More Female Cybersecurity Professionals

In Focus: The Desperate Shortage of Women in Cyber Security

Gartner’s 2018 Magic Quadrant for Endpoint Protection Platforms (EPP): What’s Changed?

4 Tips For Endpoint Security Solutions (That Everyone Forgets)

Comparing the Top Endpoint Security Vendors — Solutions Review

Answering the Top 4 Enterprise Endpoint Security Questions

What Can We Expect for the Future of Endpoint Security?

Six Endpoint Security Vendors to Watch in 2018

The 25 Best Endpoint Security Platforms and Tools of 2018

Key Findings from the Webroot Threat Report: Mid-Year Update