How to Achieve Cyber Resilience in 4 Steps

Cyber resilience is the ability to prepare for, respond to and recover from cyberattacks. This can include a set of policies and procedures that will help mitigate risk during normal operations within the processes and workflows of an organization. 

An organization with true cyber resilience can quickly get back to business as usual following any incident that is out of the ordinary. This can include, for example, a cybersecurity incident, business errors that put data and assets in danger, or even the current coronavirus pandemic.

It’s important to keep in mind that cyber resilience is an ongoing effort that relies on people, processes and technology. It helps an organization protect against cyber risks, defend against and limit the severity of attacks, and ensure its continued survival if attacked. 

How can cyber resilience be achieved? Here are four key steps to consider.

Step 1: Identify risks

Begin by identifying, assessing and managing the risks that are associated with network and information systems, including risks that exist across the supply chain. Such risks can include unpatched technology, untrusted certificates, assets not protected by a Web Application Firewall misconfigured servers and more. 

Step 2: Monitor

It’s not enough to check cyber posture a few times a year. Since new threats are introduced all the time, it’s important to continuously monitor your network and information systems, as well as your suppliers’ systems. Doing so will allow you to detect anomalies and potential cybersecurity incidents before they can cause any significant damage. 

Step 3: Plan

What happens if your organization becomes the victim of a cyberattack? To address this question, you should prepare an incident response management program. With a plan, you can help ensure business continuity for your organization. 

Your plan can include:

• The ability to recover data when necessary.
• The ability to securely work remotely without the usual office infrastructure.
• Preparing a spokesperson and relevant procedures for speaking with the media and customers, including providing formal updates and messaging.  

Step 4: Internalize

Steps to achieve cyber resilience should be overseen from the top of the organization and built right into the business. It should include:

• Employee involvement, including awareness, familiarity with procedures and following instructions.
• Performing routine cybersecurity maintenance tasks such as patches, updates, backups and permission access.
• Encrypting and defending the data that you are responsible for.
• Implementing data-centric security (encryption, tokenization, segmentation, throttle access, marking, tagging, strong identity and access management, and automated access decisions)
• Adopting cloud-based infrastructure using security best practices, as well as elastic workloads, multizone computing and other relevant capabilities.
• Having a dedicated professional DevSecOps team that knows how to assist with all situations. 

Want to learn more about how you and your third parties can achieve cyber resilience? Schedule a demo today.