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CHARLES BURGER , GLOBAL DIRECTOR OF ASSUREON SOLUTIONS AT NEXSAN , A STORCENTRIC COMPANY
EDITOR ’ S QUESTION
Whether it is your data or employees – what has become crystal clear is that today , your organization ’ s two greatest assets no longer reside safely within your four walls . And , while honest mistakes can put your company ’ s cybersecurity at risk , malicious behavior from bad actors is more commonly to blame . So how do you as a security leader protect against both ?
To start , consistently train and educate your workforce . Teach users to adopt a virtually zero trust attitude . For instance , users should not visit unapproved websites , nor click on links or open files inside unexpected emails – even from those they know and trust .
This is a common trick used by malicious actors to gain access to confidential data or the company network , as well as introduce a virus , ransomware or other malware . Then , make sure that users – and especially administrators – run in the least privileged mode possible , while still being able to maintain reasonable productivity .
Of course , this is not foolproof as malware has proven very adept at escalating to root or admin privilege levels . Next , you should regularly patch and update the management tools on all networked devices , local and remote , including switches , servers and BYODs .
New malware exploits are now published within days of patches being available , so , unfortunately , the window of relative safety is getting shorter and shorter . Of course , you must enable firewalls and deploy all the latest patches as soon as they are available and as quickly as you / your team are able .
Note that some of the newest firewalls can help block traffic from known ransomware , though the jury is still out on their real-world effectiveness . And , last but not least , disable Remote Desktop Protocol ( RDP ) unless used in carefully controlled maintenance procedures . Of course , that ’ s not really last – there are countless more strategies
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YOU MUST ENABLE FIREWALLS AND DEPLOY ALL THE LATEST PATCHES AS SOON AS THEY ARE AVAILABLE AND AS QUICKLY AS YOU / YOUR TEAM ARE ABLE .
and technologies designed to protect an organization ’ s cybersecurity .
Unfortunately , the truth is that even with the most advanced and sophisticated policies and technologies in place , many organizations will still fall prey to accidents and / or malicious attacks . The key is to not depend solely upon prevention , but rather also ensure your organization can recover . To do so , your last line of defense must be continuously updated and ready to go – that is an immutable copy that can ’ t be altered and is replicated to a secure remote location .
The remote location should be known only by a select few . And , the remote data in that location should be aggressively locked down using a hardened storage solution that has been engineered with the understanding that attempts at corruption or deletion can come from anyone , anywhere and at any time .
With this one-two punch , you can rest easier knowing that the work practices of your colleagues , as well as the efforts of external bad actors , will not put the company ’ s cybersecurity at unrecoverable risk . • www . intelligentcio . com INTELLIGENTCIO
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