Today’s world is full of risks, both personally and professionally. Taking risks is something they taught us in business school. These calculated risks can lead to big rewards, but not when it comes to your organization’s cyber security. Even the smallest risk could create irreparable damage. The goal is to reduce and/or completely eliminate your overall exposure.
Below are a few simple strategies you can leverage to manage these risks and help keep your company safe in this ever-changing digital landscape.
But before we dive into these strategies, we first need you to think about security differently, taking the “Zero Trust” mindset. What does this mean?
In the past, many businesses trusted firewalls and on-premise technologies to keep their data safe. The mindset was that anything within the network was trusted. If this is your current state of mind, we urge you to think differently.
Mobile employees, customers, partners, contractors, etc from around the globe all need access to your company’s data in order for you to do business, but you shouldn’t trust every user. You should treat every user as someone that needs to earn your trust. Never trust, always verify. This is the foundation for a continual risk mitigation model.
With that said, let’s now take a look at a few strategies to consider in order to alleviate cyber risk at your organization.
- Adaptive Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA): MFA helps you to assess the user’s login context on a case-by-case basis, based on criteria such as the device, location and network from which the login attempt originated. This helps the system to make a decision as to whether or not to prompt the user for an additional authentication factor.
- Automatic Deprovisioning Former Employees: The process of deprovisioning employees manually can be a challenge for many IT admins. The biggest risk is if these accounts never get deprovisioned for one reason or another. These “ghost” accounts can serve as a widow into the company for hackers.
Consolidating your directories gives administrators a clear view into what accounts are legitimate. Automated provisioning and deprovisioning helps to remove the tedious, manual, error prone process and ensures that users who no longer need access do not have access to your business data.
- Train Your Employees: Your employees are the biggest risk to your company’s security. Did you know that 90% of all cyber attacks are caused by human error? Training your employees to spot suspicious emails, avoid ransomware, and phishing attempts can save your organization a massive amount of money and pain in the future.
Just implementing these few key strategies can make a big impact in alleviating your organization’s cyber risk while also saving you both time and money.
To learn more about these strategies and others, or to schedule your free assessment, visit us at www.thetek.com/Okta
