National Cybersecurity Awareness Month: What every organization should know about Cyber Risk & IoT Security? | ECS Biztech Ltd.

A safer IT environment starts with cyber security awareness among businesses, enterprises and their employees. Many businesses today either lack such awareness entirely or are at the beginning of their journey and are looking for ways to improve their current security configurations. According to a Cyber Trendscape 2020 report, only 49% of CISOs that participated in the study reported that they are fully ready for a data breach or a cyber-attack. There is a long road ahead to get businesses and enterprises to be aware and take the right step towards securing their IT environments.

Back to basics: What exactly is cyber security awareness?

Essentially, the end goal is to make sure that everyone understands the potential cyber threats and risks. Everyone in the organization understands the potential of such threats and have the knowledge to help prevent cyberattacks. Cybersecurity entails not only investing in the vital technologies like setting up firewalls, cybersecurity defence systems and implementing sophisticated protocols but also develop robust control over the security processes and raise awareness of the risks involved to support that. It’s essential to establish a culture within your organization where people recognize their online behaviour that might cause or prevent potential data breaches. Security should not be solely the ‘job’ of the IT team or service provider, but a responsibility of every individual within the organisation. As businesses and organisations use more and more online services, a strong security culture should be embraced too.

Traditional approach to cyber security awareness

Traditionally, cybersecurity awareness has been the responsibility of one team. Often, employees get occasional communication or training on cybersecurity and threats that they might fall for. Reminding people about cybersecurity every once in a while, is not enough to minimize the effects.

Modern approach to cybersecurity awareness

Today, it is impossible to neglect cybersecurity awareness. This means that the topic should be constantly on the agenda and awareness should be created on a daily basis. Leadership support and the involvement of all employees is essential. A top-down approach will ensure that the approvals for various processes and the funds for the tasks involved are streamlined. The main obstacles to creating an influential security culture — a lack of resources can be overcome.

Cyber Risk & IoT Security

Cyber security has become one of the most important areas of the Internet of Things (IoT). New cybersecurity technologies and tools provide potential for better IoT security management, however, there is a lack of effective IoT cyber risk management frameworks.

The risk management framework starts with the IoT cyber ecosystem. After analysis of the ecosystem elements, an organization needs to identify and understand the dynamics and the roles of its stakeholders. The IoT ecosystem needs to be periodically or continuously monitored and the environment needs to be evaluated for potential risks. The IoT cyber risk assessment identifies the IoT assets and services that impact the security. The cybersecurity technologies can be developed, monitoring and control activities are conducted, and continuous improvement activities are performed.

Originally published at https://www.ecsbiztech.com on October 1, 2021.