Are your people the biggest threat?

As organisations increasingly adapt to more digitally-driven working practices, cyber security will remain top of organisations’ agendas. Increased media coverage has raised awareness, but threat levels have increased due to pandemic-related issues.

We asked Mark Lloyd, business unit director of Nouveau Solutions to explain what you need to consider in relation to cyber security in the coming days and weeks.

What keeps business leaders up at night?

“Cyber security is certainly a mounting concern for organisations. Today, there is a far greater awareness of security breaches frequently covered in the media and although it’s easy to think ‘it won’t happen to me’, the reality is that it is happening at a much higher frequency and to a wider range of organisations than anyone might consider. Not only can it be operationally debilitating, but being hacked can cause serious reputational damage.”

How have businesses in the South East adapted to new cyber-security risks?

“Lockdown one saw a mass exodus of people driven to working from home. The impact on many organisations was a rapid expansion of networking boundaries. Technology needed to be deployed fast and connections made into homes raised new challenges and increased threat levels. IT departments have managed this by providing VPN access, reconfiguring security profiles and making a

number of other security-focused changes such as introducing two-factor authentication, but it may not be enough.”

What is the greatest threat in cyber security?

“I often get asked this question and the simple answer is, people. Your threats originate from inside as well as outside the organisation, but most threats are people-centric. These are either malicious internal or external threats or simply a lack of knowledge and security awareness. Yet, you can protect against these threats. It requires a combination of the right technology, processes, training and education of your people. And, everybody in your organisation should be a ‘crime-fighter’ when it comes to security threats.

“As people are increasingly alternating between home and office working environments, the threats multiply. However, if you have the right proactive, artificial intelligence embedded, security monitoring solution you can baseline and then more effectively monitor users’ behaviour. You will then be alerted to irregular activities fast, for example, if you see mass deletions or movement of files and data this will be swiftly picked up.

“Reviewing endpoint security to ensure locked access to drives and dedicated USB ports for mice and keyboards will help, but won’t stop the threats caused by the

user downloading an unauthorised programme or malicious attacks through their home network that are then triggered when they are back on premise.”

What are businesses planning on doing in the next 12 months?

“Moving forward organisations will need to cater for employees that want or need to spend some time working from home. This adds layers of complexity to manage threats effectively as people regularly transition from home to office and vice versa, particularly as threats are continually evolving and become more sophisticated.

“The best option for many organisations is to seek security outsourcing partners.

“At Nouveau we offer a comprehensive set of cyber-security solutions and services to cover your security posture. From an initial survey we can help you to implement the right technology, security processes and help to educate your employees. We also offer tailored 24x7 proactive cyber-security outsourced services. We constantly keep pace with the latest cyber security threats and solutions, which enables us to more easily protect the confidentiality, availability and integrity of all your assets.

“For more information visit our website.”
nouveau.co.uk

Nouveau Solutions