How can planning help prevent cyber-attacks?

We live in an era where more and more new cyber threats are emerging that aim to favorably corroborate the illicit actions of cyber criminals.

Based on this, security has become a much discussed topic among companies, their respective suppliers and manufacturers, as any type of application needs to have the necessary security mechanisms for its use.

In this current scenario, what would be the importance of having a cyber-attack prevention strategy?

How is it possible and feasible to adopt it according to your scenario?

It is about this and other related topics that we will address in this article.

BOLSTERING DEFENSES

Initially, as we mentioned above, new cyber threats emerge every day, and it becomes very difficult to adopt real-time mechanisms to prevent them.

As a result, developing a prevention plan becomes crucial so that a company can have an adequate visibility on the measures that will be adopted to reinforce the security of the infrastructure, in the event of any invasion attempt.

There are currently several actions that companies can implement to strengthen their respective defenses. Here are some of them:

Updating on-premises equipment 

Updating the equipment installed in a local environment becomes critical, especially when it is outdated, or even without the manufacturer’s support.

Training and qualification of the technical team

Technological updating for the entire technical team is essential so that it can always respond to cyber threats in a satisfactory manner.

Separation of investment in the budget

To ensure that security will always be a priority for the operation of the company, many companies in the market have already adopted a separation in their respective budgets for this topic.

Right, but how can we prepare a plan to help prevent cyber-attacks?

PREVENTIVE PLANNING

In fact, there is no ready answer that can apply to all companies, however, here are some points that may clarify your company and help with the answer to this question:

What is the main type of business that your company is developing?

Knowing the business model in depth, and how transactions between customers occur, is essential for the prior identification of possible gaps that may become “targets” for hackers in a possible invasion attempt.

Thus, it is important to identify:

How do customers currently conduct transactions with the company?

What is the profile of customers that your company usually serves, and what are their respective market segments?

What are the warning points related to your infrastructure?

Undoubtedly, knowing the elements that may be subject to greater exposure than others in your infrastructure is essential to be able to develop a strategy aimed at preventing cyber-attacks.

To this end, it is important to identify whether your company already has the environment mapped, such elements may be related, for example, to services hosted on the Web or even in their respective network infrastructure.

As examples of points to check, we can mention a few:

Can your company currently distinguish accurately the traffic consumed, and for which application is it intended?

If an invasion attempt were to occur, can your company predict which applications or services could possibly be the most susceptible as targets for the attackers?

Thus, it is important for your company to have visibility of all network traffic, in order to identify possible deviations in the use of network resources, and whether these might be related to any suspicious traffic.

What is the plan of action in case it is necessary to counter an intrusion attempt in real time?

Naturally, no company in the market would like to go through a situation where it needs to join forces in real time to stop an intrusion attempt. As much as we have security mechanisms that help us considerably with the prevention of such attempts, we cannot rule out that an identical or similar situation may occur.

For this reason, it is essential to map out previously points that will elucidate your company in such an event. We can cite as examples:

Data backup and restore planning so that your company can ensure that the stored data will not be lost, and that such data can be recovered in a timely manner. It is essential that your company have a data backup and restore planning.

 In an intrusion scenario, for example, data backup allows your company to remove data from a particular application that is suffering from an intrusion attempt. For this reason, periodic backup to another storage device undoubtedly plays a crucial role.

FINAL CONSIDERATIONS

As we can see through of this article, developing a plan of action against cyber-attacks is not a simple task, on the contrary, it requires a lot of prior knowledge of your company.

Moreover, it is necessary for your company to have adequate tools to help discover possible security breaches, as well as to develop an action plan in case there is an invasion attempt.

In this sense, there is no doubt about the importance of investing in network management. Thus, it is noticeable that these good practices bring not only benefits for the visibility of the infrastructure, but also a way to ensure crucial information for planning and increasingly assertive strategies.

With this in mind, Telcomanager, Latin America’s leader in the software network management sector, in the market since 2002, with a unique and innovative methodology, provides intelligent solutions for data monitoring to give complete visibility to the customer’s infrastructure. This allows your company to keep track of the main aspects of your network.