Four Things to Ensure Cybersecurity Policy Works for you and not against

Cybersecurity is becoming painstakingly troublesome to manage. Couple this with the increasing ransomware attack around the globe, you’ve got a Herculean task ahead of you. Globally, companies are struggling to prevent cyberattacks or cope up with already hit infrastructure. When dissected, the fingers point to the ineffective policies that didn’t ensure the protection, they intended to, before being implemented.

Interestingly, organizations can’t just rely on the fanfare of advanced tools and protection software, because people play a substantial role in ensuring cybersecurity and plugging the gaps. Thus, your policies will bite the dust if you have created a culture that deters people from seamlessly communicating about the cybersecurity with the top leaders. Here are the four factors that an enterprise should care about for IT policies to work effectively.

Victim blaming is a strict NO

Labeling the victim as “the bad guy” escalates your worsening cybersecurity situation. Soon, the employees will start fixing the issues themselves or worse--cover up minor breaches which in the future may have disastrous consequences. People will simply stop communicating with the leaders about the security loopholes.

Air gapped systems are not the solution

The paranoia around cyberattacks may force an organization to take extreme measures: such as disconnecting critical systems from the network. Not only this will put your organization at a disadvantage, but also narrows down the target for the attackers. Air gapped systems will encourage cybercriminals to use alternative methods that are actually less sophisticated. Alternatively, attackers can create a feeder system, where the information from the air gapped system is copied to it. This is achieved with even less sophisticated methods because disconnected systems are seldom monitored.

Squeezing the freedom of employees won’t work either

Banning usage of devices outside the corporate network, withdrawing Wi-Fi privilege, and so on aren’t productive. It will affect the overall efficiency of the company, thereby, brings the entire ship down. So, it’s necessary to stay practical in 2017 as ensuring security at the cost of your company’s performance is the deal breaker.

Promote transparency and real time communications

Incident reporting needs urgency and transparency for better decision making. So, even if you lose your smartphone or a tablet, immediately report it to the IT leaders. To facilitate this, organizations should implement a solid incident reporting system. In addition, transparency between employees and IT leaders must be promoted to take quick remedial actions. Keeping things in the dark will only harm individuals and organization.

In addition to implementing advanced threat protection systems, a transparent culture has to nourished where employees don’t fear to report incidents and threats in time. To achieve that, the above four factors have to be considered.