Protecting yourself and your data online can seem like a daunting task. The difficulty is tied to several factors, such as, how many data “assets” do you have that need to be protected, how many employees, how many locations, and how many Internet connections you may have. Generally speaking, the more complex your environment is, the more difficult protecting yourself can be. Add to that the types of data your organization is trying to protect, and how high profile of an organization you may be, can also play a role in the difficulty of protecting yourself.
For instance, if your business is collecting a lot of personal identifiable information from clients, such as Social Insurance Numbers or credit card numbers, that data is highly prized by cyber criminals. Because that data is so highly prized, cyber criminals will be constantly trying to steal that data, which means your cyber security solution needs to be as up to date as possible.
One of the best ways to protect yourself and your business is to adopt a “defense in depth” approach: don’t assume any single security solution is sufficient to protect you, rather plan on overlapping solutions so that even if one fails, the next one is there to provide backup and prevent the bad guys from winning. An example of defense in depth might be a firewall that provides protection at the edge of your network, along with antivirus/antimalware/anti-ransomware software running on your local user’s machines. Ideally the firewall keeps all the bad stuff out, but even if it misses something the protection software on your endpoint is there to prevent the bad stuff from succeeding. Having backups of your key data sources offsite and offline, and you have an additional level of protection, even if both the firewall and the endpoint protection fail. The goal of this defense in depth strategy is to ensure that, one way or the other, you prevent where possible, detect where feasible, and have multiple ways to recover just in case.
Implementing a defense in depth strategy might seem complicated, but it isn’t really. Having the right support team in place can make all the difference in how easily this cyber security strategy works. To get help protecting your business online, or to learn more, please visit the Quick Intelligence website.
