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The Best Defense Is a Good Offense: Proactively Preventing Cyberattacks

Day after day, the onslaught of cyberattack headlines stream into our newsfeeds. Reports of catastrophic data breaches have become a regular feature, akin to weather and sports. In 2023, we’ve seen reports of attacks impacting a seemingly endless number of businesses, including T-Mobile, ChatGPT, Reddit, Community Health Systems, and LastPass. If breaches can happen to these massive companies, small and mid-sized businesses may be feeling that they possess little chance of defending themselves and avoiding a similar fate.

Regardless of your company’s size, there are proactive measures that can help you mitigate the chance of an attack. While defensive efforts such as endpoint protection, multi-factor authentication, and strong logical security are necessary staples of a cybersecurity strategy, tactical proactive actions can bolster a company’s ability to defend their data. The following steps are examples of what a business can do to fortify their ability to avoid attack and increase their chances of remaining safe and secure.

  • Cybersecurity Risk Assessments
    • If you don’t know what data and assets you have, or how well they are being defended, it is virtually impossible to protect your business from cyberattacks. Completing a cybersecurity risk assessment will help you identify your most critical systems and data, recognize and prioritize gaps, and build a roadmap to a safer and more secure environment.
  • Security Awareness Training
    • Since the genesis of over 91% of data breaches is a spear phishing attack, it is imperative to train employees to identify and avoid this threat. Every employee, including those being newly onboarded, should be provided with the training needed to recognize and avoid these attacks.
  • Spear Phishing Simulations
    • Once you have established a cybersecurity awareness training program, it’s critically important to then incorporate a ‘trust but verify’ approach. The best verification method to ensure all employees can identify spear phishing emails is to simulate these types of attacks. These simulations will reinforce the training concepts and identify those employees who need additional guidance.
  • Penetration Testing
    • A misconfigured network device or missing security patch can open the door for cyber criminals to enter your business. Conduct penetration testing and vulnerability assessments on a regular basis to identify and address any vulnerabilities before an actual attacker can leverage them.
  • Threat Hunting
    • Threat hunting involves searching for hidden or undetected cybersecurity threats within a network that has circumvented endpoint security protections. Using various methods, threat hunters scrutinize a company’s technical assets for anomalous behavior that may be indicative of malicious activity.

To help sharpen your proactive cyber strategy or get help for deploying your security measures, consider setting up a meeting to discuss how Citrin Cooperman can help your business. To get started, please reach out to Kevin Ricci at kricci@citrincooperman.com

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