Cybersecurity: How to Manage the Risks? "No One Is Safe From Cyber Attacks"

 

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, many companies have had to quickly relocate their employees, in addition to transforming their IT infrastructures to continue their operations. But have they thought about the risks of cyber-attacks?

 

computer attacks regularly made the headlines during the health crisis. And that's just the tip of the iceberg, according to Yves Paquette, the founder, and president of NOVIPRO, a firm specializing in technological and cloud-based business solutions.

 

“No one is immune,” he says. And no one can say that it will never happen to him, that it only happens to others. "

 

However, in the hasty reorganization carried out at the start of the health crisis, several companies have not revised their cyber security practices.

 

"IT is when it crashes that we realize that it is essential", underlines the head of information security (CISO) at NOVIPRO, Dominique Derriere. For him, a cyber-attack in a company is like a fire: everything is destroyed, and experts must extinguish the fire, check the building, clean up,and rebuild the structure. It is humanly and economically devastating.

 

 

Identify Valuable Assets

An organization that wants to improve the cybersecurity of its facilities and limit risks must first and foremost identify the assets that are essential to maintain its activities. What gives him income? His employees? Its e-commerce platform? Its manufacturing equipment? His data?

 

“We must also protect its ability to generate value,” explains Dominique Derriere, giving the example of a company whose survival depends on online commerce during the COVID-19 pandemic.

 

In other words, all the doors through which cyber hackers can pass to access the strategic assets of the company must be locked. “All you need is a small window to enter,” warns Dominique Terrier. A single email with a fraudulent link, for example, can give the company key to scammers.

 

Telework, riskier

Teleworking, which was adopted in disaster by many companies from the start of the pandemic, has increased their vulnerability to computer attacks since it has multiplied the doors of entry. An increase in the attack surface (and risk) difficult to measure for companies that have not yet integrated security.

 

"Technologies are evolving at high speed and so are cybersecurity rules," insists Yves Paquette. A business must constantly assess risks. "

 

To do this, an organization has an advantage in using the services of experts who are on the lookout for new threats and who are able to determine the weaknesses of the cyber protections it puts in place. According to the president of NOVIPRO, too many cybersecurity decisions are made in companies without the advice of a specialist, which means that the means used to reduce online crooks are insufficient or even ineffective.

 

Yves Paquette gives the example of a factory that acquires equipment that can control the production line remotely, but that does not change the basic passwords. According to him, she is thus exposed to the risks of a cyber hacker accessing her data and, who knows, operating the machine himself.

 

 

Continuous Management

Even when risks are well understood and barriers are erected to prevent hackers from wreaking havoc, a business needs to stay on the lookout.

 

“The challenge is to constantly manage risk. You have to adapt to the risk, ”notes Dominique Derriere, who emphasizes the need to remain zen in spite of everything. If you want to safe from cyberattacks install protegent360 antivirus this antivirus secures all types of cybercrime.