Cybersecurity threats evolve as days come by. Organizations have to come up with ways of ensuring their data are safe from infiltration. Did you know the average cost of a data breach this year is expected to exceed $150 million? Now, here’s the shocker. There is a hacker attack every 39 seconds.

To avoid losing data, we have come up with tips that organizations can use to respond to cybersecurity risks.

Remember, you are a target

This is the most critical cybersecurity tip. It would help if you never assumed you wouldn’t be a target. Upcoming companies often have a mindset that data in their servers are not important enough for hacking. They are wrong. Small and medium businesses attract hackers because they don’t have the same level of defenses as larger companies.

Smaller companies also have data such as passwords, client information, and sensitive email threads. The best thing to do is to perform threat-modeling exercises as you come up with practical protection measures.

Evaluating risk frequently

Any data in an organization interacts with users. Now, what can an organization do to ensure the data is safe? Well, the organizations have to monitor the interactions for threats continuously.

This is a challenge because many organizations take action once a breach has taken place. The goal of every organization should be to identify and respond to potential risks. This is why we advise for continuous evaluation.

Risk profiling of users should continue even after they have portrayed a trust-able behavior. Continuous risk evaluation and penetration testing should be done. Users’ activities should be monitored by checking out what a user does when given access and whether it is trustworthy. Both employees and clients should undergo this mandatory evaluation.

Backup all network and systems

Since everyone is prone to hacking and we all don’t know when an axe might fall on us. It is vital to back up data in either cloud or a physical one. The backed up data should always be stored separately from the main server.

In case of a cyber-attack, it is advisable to completely wipe a device or server. The benefit of storing backup’s offline and in multiple locations is that they won’t be accessed by the infected files. However, you should regularly test the backups and do data restoration procedures for effective restoration in case of an attack.

Automating the Risk Response

This is a strategy that has emerged in recent years. With the help of behavioral analytics and artificial intelligence. Businesses can now mitigate threats before they happen. Organizations have the sole mandate of defining how it will respond to incidents and threats.

The Automatic threat response will execute the action immediately after a threat has been identified. Also, Data analytics can reduce the time of identifying a threat. Extensive resources should be thrown at the highest immediate risks only as routine security decisions are sorted automatically.

Ensure your systems are up-to-date

Are your systems updated? It is important to always keep your systems patched and updated. Manufacturers of software manufacturers often release software patches to correct issues that arose from a previous version of particular software.

Some of the flaws that could be corrected include cybersecurity loopholes. Also, installing the latest software updates is recommended because, for starters, it is easy to do. This can be done through having update checks, turning on automatic updates, and using recommended web browsers such as Chrome because they receive frequent and automatic updates.

Other tips

Other precautions that you can take include having email security, firewalls, and ad blockers that can block malicious attachments and pop-ups.

The above tips are the most practical starting point for businesses to improve their cybersecurity. The strategies act as a baseline of protection against cybersecurity threats. They are designed in a way that is relating to your business’s risk profile. Also, they address solutions to cyber challenges that might present themselves as a threat to businesses.