From nice-to-have to business essential: why security matters for every business
There are at least two core reasons as to why IT security has moved from vague concern for businesses in certain sectors or with a particularly complex IT infrastructure, to a centralised issue for all organisations.
First, the cyber threat landscape has evolved – and continues to evolve – dramatically and dynamically. The scope and scale of tools and techniques deployed by everyone from digital vandals to highly sophisticated cybercriminals are ever-growing, and organisations of all sizes and across all sectors are at risk. Organisations may simply be ‘drive by’ victims of indiscriminate campaigns, where infected links or attachments are sent out en masse to thousands of email addresses.
Or they may be the targets of highly planned attacks, where criminals seek to extract specific data from within their systems over weeks or months. All it takes is a single employee opening the wrong attachment or clicking on the wrong hyperlink and ransomware can freeze critical business applications, steal valuable data or bring operations grinding to a halt. And because human error can never be totally mitigated, nor too can the risk of such cyber threats infiltrating any organisation.
Second, even the smallest organisations are operating increasingly complex IT infrastructures, with large numbers of applications and endpoint devices to protect, and new users and devices continually being added. As the Internet of Things (IoT) continues to proliferate, and employees become more likely to work across a number of different mobile devices, so businesses have a larger number of endpoints to keep track of and protect with enterprise-grade security. For fast-growth organisations, those with multiple sites and those that employ a large number of temporary or freelance staff, the challenges are even greater. Since every organisation needs to protect itself, we’ve pulled together 10 steps to secure your business. Follow this programme of actions and you’ll have a more robust and secure architecture that’s fit for working 3.0 trends.
This article is part of “Master business cyber security in 10 steps” Insight Guide. Read the full Insight Guide here.
