Demystifying Cybersecurity: A Guide for Non-Technical Professionals
Cybersecurity is one of the most important aspects of modern business. As technology moves forward, the threat of a catastrophic cyber attack looming around the corner becomes more realistic — and any organisation looking to protect itself will need to answer the call of cybersecurity.
However, the world of cybersecurity may seem tricky or difficult to those who don’t understand the technical ins and outs. This can deter people from investing in significant cybersecurity — while the reality is that cybersecurity is much more practical to understand than it may seem.
In this article, we’re going to go over the basics of cybersecurity and why your organisation should look into cybersecurity today, in a non-technical fashion.
Why is Cybersecurity Important
Much like the key to a house, cybersecurity will act as the primary way to stop any malicious actors from getting into your organisation’s most vulnerable areas, to wreak havoc.
This threat isn’t abstract, either. With over 2,000 estimated cyberattacks every day worldwide, there is a genuine threat of a cyberattack lurking around every corner. So, ensuring that you’re protected is vital.
This is also why making sure that the cybersecurity solution that you’re implementing is both relevant and potent is critical — much like ensuring that the lock to your house is strong enough to withstand force, your chosen cybersecurity implementation will act as the secure front to your organisation.
A good cybersecurity solution will be able to monitor, detect, and help you respond to threats in real-time — there are lots of potent cybersecurity solutions that exist to ensure that your organisation is protected. These solutions protect different areas of your organisation, and so utilising multiple of them is the best way to ensure that your business is protected.
If you’re unsure about cybersecurity, feel free to reach out for a helping hand. Our experts will be able to provide you with the help you need to figure out which security solutions work best for your organisation.
Want to keep your business secure and ahead of any emerging cyber threats? Get your free copy of SonicWall’s mid-year update to their 2023 Cyber Threat Report!
Common Cybersecurity Solutions
Network Security
Network security does as it says — it secures your network from any unauthorised connections or any other malicious activity targeting your network. Your network is the connections around your organisation, meaning your whole internet setup as well as any other internal networks that you may have.
Most businesses control their network security is by using a firewall to control access in and out of your organisation’s network — giving them control over whatever incoming and outgoing connections have access.
In order to take this technology to the next level, many security-conscious organisations are implementing next-generation firewalls (NGFWs). These next-generation firewalls are a significant evolution of conventional firewalls, equipped with advanced inspection capabilities that enable them to make more nuanced and accurate decisions about permitting or denying network traffic. This results in heightened security and better protection against the sophisticated and multifaceted cyber threats prevalent in today's digital landscape.
There are also specific tools that allow you to manage exactly who is on your network — allowing you to block anyone who isn’t specifically authorised to be on there. After all, even if they’re just connected to the internet, this is still a vulnerability.
Application Security
Application Security exists to protect your applications from any external threats. Vulnerable points within applications can be used to breach organisations, so ensuring your applications are secure is crucial.
This method of security usually takes place within the software development lifecycle and puts the focus on ensuring that vulnerabilities are patched out to reduce the attack surface towards your organisation.
An application firewall is also commonly used in application security. This will create more ways to control incoming and outgoing signals — meaning that you can ultimately ensure that nothing suspicious can breach your organisation through your applications.
Data Security
Data security exists to secure your most important data from external threats — to ensure that you’re not put into a situation where your most critical data is either stolen or destroyed.
This is especially important when considering compliance regulations. For example, GDPR means that a data breach could also cause compliance issues for your organisation — resulting in hefty consequences.
Data security exists in two forms — data security and data backup/recovery. Where data security is more proactive protection of your data, data backup/recovery exists to get you back up and running quickly in the event of a catastrophe.
The most common form of data security is encryption. This uses cryptography to scramble your data until a valid encryption key is presented — meaning that nobody can access your data without decrypting it first.
Encryption is the most powerful and popular form of data security, and most modern technologies have encryption built-in — but this doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t encrypt your data anyway.
Data recovery and backup are also crucial, as having a secure backup and disaster recovery plan will be able to make sure your organisation is back up and running quickly if something bad does happen. The best form of backup is the 3-2-1 backup — having three total backups, on two different forms of backup media (hard drive, cloud, etc.), one of which is stored offsite.
Endpoint Security
Endpoint security provides security for the devices that connect to your network. This includes devices such as computers, phones, laptops, tablets, and any other endpoint device that your organisation may use.
This is important as endpoint devices give access to your whole organisation, meaning that an endpoint that isn't secure could result in a vulnerability for your whole organisation.
Endpoint detection and response (EDR) is the most common form of endpoint security. This kind of security continuously monitors an endpoint to detect incoming threats and allow you to respond to them with ease.
Identity Security
The process of identity security is making sure that those inside your system are the people who should have access to your system — and that access isn’t handed to anyone who isn’t supposed to have it.
The best form of identity security management is a process called ‘zero trust’ — which treats everyone within your organisation as though they cannot be trusted until they provide authentication (and keep being authenticated throughout their time within your system).
This is important in modern cybersecurity as zero trust is the only way to protect against modern threats that can spoof credentials and fraudulently gain access to your network — where before it was easier to trust credentials, zero trust is now the best way to manage identity security.
How To Improve Your Security Posture
Cybersecurity is a massively important consideration for any organisation. Much like security tools for physical access to a home or building, cybersecurity tools and procedures will ensure that you have no way for anyone malicious to gain access to your most sensitive data.
If you’re looking to improve your security posture but don’t know where to start, get in touch with us today. Our experts are here to help you through the whole process and will ensure that you’re protected from all the threats that you could face.
Reach out to us now and see how we can help.