Why Cyber Maturity Doesn’t Slow Down Over the Summer

Overview

It’s summertime! That means fun in the sun, beach days, time off from school, and having just one responsibility – to relax. Or so we thought. As much as the summer is a time to kick back after all the hard work in the first half of the year, it is also an opportunity for both organizations and threat actors, in different ways. For organizations, it can be a time to reflect on what has worked well so far and what improvements can be made to its cybersecurity program. For threat actors, it is a chance to exploit unsuspecting organizations whose business has slowed down or are potentially operating at half capacity due to vacations. For these reasons, companies should maximize their time in the summer to conduct deep analysis on their environment, review the infrastructure and processes in their cybersecurity program, and identify optimizations that could be implemented to continue to proactively prepare for tomorrow’s threat.

Threat Actors Don’t Have Summer Breaks

Threat actors are working year-round to infiltrate your organization and compromise your data. So, while we may have lowered our guards during the summer, cybercriminals are increasing their efforts. Some of the reasons why threat actors love the summer are:

• Some companies that have physical office spaces, along with equipment and assets onsite (e.g., servers), are susceptible to overheating and malfunctions.
• When employees decide to work remotely, they have a higher likelihood of connecting to public Wi-Fi networks that often have weak security if they are traveling.
• Employees have an increased chance of leaving work laptops unattended while vacationing in different states and countries.
• Due to the number of people taking time off, certain security practices, such as vulnerability scanning and logging, may not be conducted on their normal cadence.

Cybercriminals are constantly working to discover different methods to obtain unauthorized access to your environment for their own gain (or just for the fun of it), and to combat this, vigilance and effective security measures are a must. Your organization can ensure that it is not exposing itself to potential risk by ensuring it has appropriate coverage in the summer, that it is taking additional steps to reduce employee negligence for those traveling (e.g., security training, debriefing before vacation) and constantly assessing the security measures it currently has in place. The key is being proactive and not waiting until potential incidents or attacks occur before taking action.

Keep Your Org’s Foot on the Gas

Unfortunately, cybersecurity is a constantly moving target and therefore, there is not a final state for a company to attain. For that reason, as mentioned above, being proactive is paramount for an organization to ensure it is protecting itself, its customers, its stakeholders and its shareholders’ investments from threats.

So, you may be wondering, “What actions I can take to take charge and be dynamic in addressing potential cybersecurity concerns, as well as make improvements in my environment?” I’m glad you asked! Below are some key steps that you can execute to not only refine and enhance current security processes and procedures, but also improve your cyber maturity and optimize your program overall. The list is as follows:

• Review your cybersecurity policies and documentation, and make updates as needed.
• Analyze the security controls in your environment to ensure they are not only operating, but also performing within expected parameters.
• Conduct vulnerability and risk assessments in your environment to identify potential risks.
• Inspect your risk register to determine progress on remediating current risks and pinpoint potential roadblocks and delays.
• Identify security roles that need to be filled and/or should be generated, and increase recruiting efforts around them.
• Implement a VPN (if applicable) in your environment, along with MFA.
• Schedule a tabletop exercise if it hasn’t been occurred in the calendar year or has not been set for later in the year.
• Schedule an external penetration test to be executed on your environment.
• Establish more secure measures and requirements around remote work for employees, including where they are allowed to work and using MFA to log into the corporate network.
• Ensure employees are unable to access sensitive client information from their mobile devices (if possible).
  
  

Conclusion

Despite the efforts of threat actors around the globe working around the clock, you can still enjoy your summer if you have taken the right steps ahead of time. Work-life balance is also important to ensure your organization has a right and rested mindset to address security concerns as they arise; so, no one is saying to direct your employees to work 24/7 and never take time off. As long as your company is proactive in its fight against cybercriminals and their devious ways, then you too can have a sunny and safe summer!