What are the best ways to improve a company's cybersecurity?

Cybersecurity is a vital aspect of any business, especially in the digital age. However, many companies struggle to keep up with the evolving threats and best practices in this field. As a management consultant, you can help your clients improve their cybersecurity by following these six tips.

1 Assess the risks

The first step to improving cybersecurity is to identify the current and potential risks that your client faces. You can use a framework such as NIST or ISO to conduct a comprehensive risk assessment, covering the technical, human, and organizational aspects of cybersecurity. This will help you prioritize the most critical issues and recommend appropriate solutions.

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Daman Dev Sood 'Resilient People - Resilient Planet'

♻️Professor of Practice| Mentor-Coach-Guide|👨🏫100% NPS|✍️10 books|18 Copyrights|| Top Trg. & Dev. Voice🔆| Resilience Trainer-Consultant
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As Cybersecurity is linked to digital assets, one of the starting points is to have a complete and up-to-date inventory of all digital assets - which is a difficult task, and this inventory is missing from many organisations. The challenge becomes in the old/ established companies that they run in 'maintenance' mode - someone long ago created these risk registers - we now just update. They do not realise the big risk in not knowing how todo it afresh.

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2 Implement the basics

The next step is to ensure that your client has the basic cybersecurity measures in place, such as strong passwords, encryption, firewalls, antivirus software, backups, and updates. These are the first line of defense against common cyberattacks, such as phishing, malware, ransomware, and denial-of-service. You can help your client adopt the best practices and standards for these measures, such as using multi-factor authentication, encrypting sensitive data, and applying patches regularly.

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3 Educate the staff

One of the biggest cybersecurity challenges is the human factor. Many cyberattacks exploit the lack of awareness or negligence of the staff, such as clicking on malicious links, opening attachments, or sharing passwords. You can help your client improve their cybersecurity culture by providing training and awareness programs for the staff, covering the basic dos and don'ts of cybersecurity, the common threats and signs, and the reporting and response procedures.

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Daman Dev Sood 'Resilient People - Resilient Planet'

♻️Professor of Practice| Mentor-Coach-Guide|👨🏫100% NPS|✍️10 books|18 Copyrights|| Top Trg. & Dev. Voice🔆| Resilience Trainer-Consultant
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Within the basics, I will go to my master statement - every security starts with physical secuirty - same is true about cyber security also. For this reason, I am not in favour of continued/ prolonged 'work from home' as the physical security at home is much less than compared to the same in the office.

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4 Monitor and test

Another important step to improving cybersecurity is to monitor and test the effectiveness of the measures in place. You can help your client set up and use tools and metrics to track and measure their cybersecurity performance, such as incident reports, audits, vulnerability scans, and penetration tests. These will help you identify and address any gaps or weaknesses in the cybersecurity system, as well as evaluate the return on investment and compliance.

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5 Update and innovate

Cybersecurity is not a one-time project, but a continuous process. You can help your client stay ahead of the curve by updating and innovating their cybersecurity strategies and solutions, based on the latest trends and technologies. For example, you can help your client leverage artificial intelligence, cloud computing, blockchain, or biometrics to enhance their cybersecurity capabilities and resilience.

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6 Collaborate and communicate

The final step to improving cybersecurity is to collaborate and communicate with the relevant stakeholders, both internally and externally. You can help your client foster a collaborative and communicative culture within their organization, involving the top management, the IT department, and the staff in the cybersecurity decision-making and implementation. You can also help your client establish and maintain relationships with the external partners, such as vendors, customers, regulators, and peers, to share information, best practices, and resources on cybersecurity.

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7 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?

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Daman Dev Sood 'Resilient People - Resilient Planet'

♻️Professor of Practice| Mentor-Coach-Guide|👨🏫100% NPS|✍️10 books|18 Copyrights|| Top Trg. & Dev. Voice🔆| Resilience Trainer-Consultant
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Some people are in the habit of just closing their machine (rather than switching off). Such machines are not restarted for long (days and weeks), hence the auto updates to the operating system or to supporting applications (antivirus software e.g.) are not implemented. Such machines remain at a higher risk of being exploited by cyberattacks. Scripts can be written to force the restart of machines to take care of this risk.

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What are the best ways to improve a company's cybersecurity?

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1 Assess the risks

2 Implement the basics

3 Educate the staff

4 Monitor and test

5 Update and innovate

6 Collaborate and communicate

7 Here’s what else to consider

Management Consulting

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What are the best ways to improve a company's cybersecurity?

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

1 Assess the risks

2 Implement the basics

3 Educate the staff

4 Monitor and test

5 Update and innovate

6 Collaborate and communicate

7 Here’s what else to consider

Management Consulting

Rate this article

Thanks for your feedback

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