The Cyber Defense eMagazine February Edition for 2024

Just as a driver maintains their vehicle, businesses need to maintain their cybersecurity. But the sad fact
is that too many organizations are still failing to practice good cyber hygiene and leaving their networks
wide open to attacks. Without good cyber hygiene, businesses are risking not just financial damage, but
reputations that could be left in tatters: 10% of consumers will stop buying from a company if it suffers a
data breach. It takes significant time and considerable effort to build trust with customers, and just one
incident is enough to break it instantly or make it incredibly hard to rebuild.
So, where are the blind spots that can make organizations vulnerable? And how can they ensure they
are keeping themselves safe, and that the third parties and suppliers they engage with are protecting
themselves too?
There’s no room for complacency in cyberspace
Cybersecurity is much more than just having a strong password, or a firewall. A common misconception
about cybersecurity is that it’s only relevant to businesses in the cyber space or those that handle
sensitive data. Organizations might think they’re protected. But who can confidently say the same for the
third parties they deal with…and even the third parties they then deal with? Returning to our car, think of
your organization like the vehicle entering a series of roundabouts.
Traffic can be flowing smoothly, until somewhere in the road network a crash happens, and the road is
closed. The ripple effect from that causes disruption to the roads around it, including the one you are
currently on. All of a sudden, and through no fault of your own, you are brought to a halt and unable to
continue. Why? Because the network is interconnected. It’s the same for your digital networks. Today we
are all digitally connected, and we all face cyber risks that ripple outward to threaten your security, and
those of your third parties and suppliers.
A high-profile example of this was a recent hack into a third-party vendor that caused multi-day outages
to their client’s internal systems. The result? Financial losses estimated at nearly $9 million per day, a
significant drop in the company’s stock price, and a loss of the one vital commodity no business can buy,
trust.
Keeping that trust will get harder as cyber threats evolve. It would be foolish for any organization to claim
they have 100% security. A network system that seemed ‘healthy’ five years ago, or even one year ago,
may now be at risk from new threats. While it’s not possible to avoid threats completely, organizations
can take steps to mitigating the risk, and that starts with instilling good cyber hygiene habits. We’ve found
that companies with good, ongoing cyber hygiene habits are breached much less frequently. In fact,
businesses that deploy threat detection and response measures report breach event rates that are nine
times lower than for companies whose hygiene rating is very bad.
Take a closer look: one global Fortune 50 company realized that as its vendor portfolio grew, so did its
potential attack surface. With detailed cyber risk assessments, the company gained ten times increased
risk visibility, making it much more difficult to compromise. That’s a great example of how continuously
recalibrating cyber hygiene practices can help businesses increase their resilience.
Cyber Defense eMagazine – February 2024 Edition 44
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