6 Cybersecurity and compliance resilience strategies for your SME
Due to cyber threats and compliance challenges, SMEs face various obstacles and risks, that can have severe consequences, especially if you don’t have the resources and expertise to deal with them.
But how can you build resilience when threats and regulations are continuously changing and evolving?
In this blog, we explore the resilience strategies to guide you in identifying and implementing the necessary compliance measures, enabling you to fortify resources and mitigate the effects of cyber threats on your business.
What is a cyber resilience strategy, and what makes its adoption crucial for your organisation?
A cyber resilience strategy is a comprehensive plan that includes essential measures for identifying, responding to, and recovering from cyber threats. It considers the broader context of cybersecurity, aligning with your organisation’s objectives, risk tolerance, and regulatory requirements. Going beyond a mere cyber resilience framework, it offers a strategic approach to establishing resilience against cyberattacks.
The question arises: Why does your organisation require a cyber resilience strategy? The answer lies in the continually evolving nature of the threat landscape. Cybercriminals continuously devise innovative techniques to breach your defences, exploit vulnerabilities, and disrupt operations. A cyber resilience strategy prepares you to confront these threats proactively, ensuring the seamless continuity of your organisation and mitigating potential harm.
Now that you have an understanding of the importance of a cyber resilience strategy, let’s dive into actionable tips that can help you create an effective and proactive plan:
Six essential cybersecurity resilience strategies
1. Awareness Training
Your employees are your first line of defence against cyber threats, equip them with the knowledge needed to identify and mitigate common attack vectors, and how to respond to potential threats, this will help foster a holistic improvement in your organisation's cybersecurity posture.
Through real-time cybersecurity awareness training, employees are guided to comprehend risks, spot red flags, and align with data protection regulations. It’s all about making your workforce a resilient and proactive line of defence against potential cyber threats.
2. Leverage the Latest Technologies
Embracing cutting-edge technologies, like artificial intelligence (AI), helps you automate security tasks, analyse vast data sets for anomalies, and gain insights into patterns for future reference.
Ultimately, these technologies can enhance security and efficiency, giving you more time and resources to focus on more intricate, human-oriented tasks.
3. Cybersecurity Incident Response Plan
A cybersecurity incident response plan is a document designed to help your organisation respond quickly and effectively to cyber incidents. A cybersecurity response plan lays out a step-by-step approach, from whom to contact to how to handle communications and how to identify lessons learned to prevent future events.
Don't have one? We’ve developed a step-by-step approach to help your organisation respond and recover from a cybersecurity attack. Download our free Cybersecurity Incident Response Plan which guides you on how to detect, respond, and recover from a cybersecurity attack.
4. Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR)
Endpoint detection and response collects and analyses data, detecting and responding to malicious activities while providing alerts and reports. This tool is generally cloud-powered and offers endpoint protection, detection and response, mobile threat defence, and integrated vulnerability management. Learn more about EDR-as-a-Service and its capabilities.
5. Cloud Security
Your business data and applications are priceless assets that must be protected at all costs, especially when hosted in the cloud. Encryption, access control, firewalls, and other security features ensure you comply with critical regulatory standards while providing cloud security, audit management, and risk management features. Enhancing cloud security through these measures is essential for safeguarding your valuable assets.
6. Identity and access management
Manage user and device access rights through authentication, authorisation, and auditing features. You may have too many people with access to critical information systems, from IT administrators to external vendors to select users, which makes them vulnerable to cybercriminals.
Six strategies for building compliance resilience
1. Stay informed and updated
Compliance with data protection policies and regulations is non-negotiable. Most countries have legislation, such as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) or the Protection of Personal Information Act (POPIA), that imposes stringent requirements on organisations, and failure to comply can lead to severe penalties and reputational damage. These policies enable your business to navigate the complex regulatory landscape, proving your commitment to data privacy and compliance and, ultimately, improving your reputation with customers, employees, and other stakeholders.
2. Adopt a risk-based approach
It's crucial to navigate compliance and threats with a strategic and focused approach, which entails prioritising the most essential and relevant regulations that align with the specific nature, scope, and purpose of your data processing activities. By carefully assessing the types and volumes of data you collect and store, you can effectively identify and quantify the potential impact and likelihood of data breaches and violations. This proactive approach allows for a more comprehensive and tailored response to safeguarding your data.
3. Consider compliance management software
Compliance software or services simplify and automate compliance tasks and reporting, helping you manage, monitor, and ensure compliance with legal and regulatory requirements throughout your business. It can also assist in reducing associated costs and time, in turn improving your compliance performance and reputation.
4. Data mapping
This process lets you understand how personal data flows within your organisation, from collection to deletion or storage. As a result, it streamlines compliance with data protection regulations enables you to document and helps standardise your data and make it easier to understand.
5. Privacy impact assessment
A privacy impact assessment involves evaluating potential privacy risks and impacts, especially concerning new or changing technologies, systems, or processes. This ensures a systematic and comprehensive analysis of your data administration's necessity, proportionality, and legality. From here, you can mitigate risks and protect data rights.
You can also involve relevant employees and stakeholders in the assessment to enhance data protection
6. Audit management
Conduct policy, procedure, and practice audits regularly to monitor and verify compliance with various legal and regulatory requirements. Audit management also provides a structured and standardised framework for internal and external audits.
Remember to create and maintain records, findings, recommendations, and corrective actions to ensure you can demonstrate your compliance.
Ready to fortify your SME against cyber threats and compliance challenges?
Cyber and compliance resilience require continuous attention and investment. This ongoing effort ensures the safeguarding of digital assets and maintaining a strong reputation, trust, and credibility with customers and stakeholders. This combined approach provides SMEs with a comprehensive and sustainable framework for navigating the ever-evolving landscape of digital security.