The recent cyber attacks by the Syrian Electronic Army (SEA) call attention to businesses’ vulnerability to crippling cyber breaches. The SEA is a group of hackers and activists who seek to counter what they call the “fabricated news” disseminated by Arab and Western media. The New York Times, Fox News and the Associated Press have been among the recent victims of the SEA.
Follow these 10 steps to protect yourself against the ever-growing threat of cyber attacks.
- Develop a mobile working policy and train staff to adhere to it.
- Produce user security policies dictating acceptable and secure use of your organization’s systems.
- Establish an incident response and disaster recovery capability.
- Outline an effective governance structure and determine your cyber risks.
- Limit employee cyber privileges and monitor user activity.
- Create a policy to control all access to removable media.
- Monitor all systems and networks and continuously analyze activity logs.
- Apply security patches and ensure the continued secure configuration of all information and communication technology.
- Scan for malware across your organization.
- Test security controls and filter out unauthorized access and malicious content.