Any business could face the risk of a data breach or cyber-attack. Regardless of the size – big or small.  

Attacks happen daily, so what can companies do to stay safe in a world with a malicious attack every 39 seconds? The 10-Step Approach provided here is aimed to help you protect yourself as awareness is your best defense! 

1. Details of data: An organization cannot know how they are at risk without knowing the amount and location of their data.
2. Back up: Being ready and vigilant is the ultimate fallback if a scam happens. Turning the clock back is the best precaution possible.
3. Educate employees: Human error accounts for 95% of cybersecurity breaches. A major way to reduce potential risks is to brief the employees about protecting the data they handle.
4. DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) defense: It is vital to have the ability to absorb or avoid malicious attacks designed to slow down your systems.
5. Security of the development process: With the pace of modern software development speeding up, more threat actors are using the rapid production of apps as opportunities to attack vulnerabilities in your code. HCL AppScan, a fast, accurate, agile security testing platform, empower developers to find and fix vulnerabilities.
6. Strong antivirus and firewall: The right antivirus protection help to safeguard the file system against unwanted programs. In contrast, your firewall helps keep external threats from getting access to your system to begin with.
7. Data-level defense: Continuously analyze your data usage patterns (where is it stored, who is storing it) to identify potentially suspicious activity and stop it before it becomes a breach event.
8. Intrusion detection tools: It is great to have data breach prevention and detection tools. It is important to prevent a breach, but it is critical to be aware as soon as possible if a breach occurs.
9. Patching: Set a routine for patching your systems and regular review. Doing so will ensure that assets in your environment are not susceptible to manipulation. HCL BigFix, our endpoint management platform, manages every endpoint in your enterprise, including iOS and Android, thereby delivering greater than 98% first-pass patch success rates.
10. Remote Conferencing: The coronavirus pandemic created a massive surge in the use of video conferencing. The sudden expansion of video meetings and our reliance on them has raised understandable concerns about risk and security. This calls for a secure video meetings platform. HCL Sametime is our highly secure and trusted meetings platform, built for how today’s modern organizations need to be working — nimbly, securely, and remotely — and at half the cost of other vendors.

The looming shadow of cyber-attacks is nothing new, but its potential costs are growing exponentially. By taking appropriate actions, organizations can significantly reduce the risks associated with these attacks.