With the growth and ingenuity in technology comes the growth and ingenuity in cyber attacks. As technology is advancing, it is creating more surface area for potential cyber attacks and vulnerabilities.

Over the past couple of years starting from 2020, the number of cyber attacks to both individuals and businesses has significantly increased. The most common threat being phishing and the most attack being ransomware. According to Chainalysis, ransomware payments exceed $1 billion in 2023.

Cyber attacks can have significant effects on a business ranging from disruption of services or operational hold ups, reputational damage to financial losses and legal implications. A good cyber security strategy will help mitigate these adverse effects.

It is quite difficult for businesses to keep up with what needs to be done, how to secure their business, digital solutions and products without a proper strategy or framework in place. Having a good strategy in place mostly ensures that you have a structured approach to securing your business and it also ensures that you are covering all the necessary areas to protect, limit and recover if necessary from cyber attacks.

What is a cybersecurity strategy?

Cybersecurity strategy is a plan of action to protect your business from cyber attacks. It’s your game plan or your roadmap to achieving security. It is important to have a strategy in place because protecting your business against cyber attacks is a continuous activity and that is why your business needs a plan or a roadmap to achieving this goal.

Including these 3 key areas in your cybersecurity strategy will significantly improve your protection against cyber attacks

1. Guard the gates: This involves preventing unauthorised access to your system and accounts. If an attacker cannot gain entry or access to your system or accounts, they cannot perpetrate an attack.

   Examples of measures you can take in this regard includes:

   • Using strong passwords that contain a mixture of uppercase and lowercase words, symbols and numbers.

   • Enable two-factor-authentication for accounts that provide this feature.

   • Only authorised personnel should have access to your systems and accounts

   • Install updates as soon as they are available.

   • Verify unsolicited emails before interacting with them. Lookout for misspelt email addresses, brand names, urls, typos etc.

2. Limit access: This will help you mitigate against any damage done when an attacker gains access to your system. This security measure involves concepts like giving authorised personnel just enough access to do what they need to do or limiting the lifespan of their access. Most cloud solutions provide features like identity management and role-based access.

3. Backup your data: This deals with how to recover efficiently after an attack has occurred. Your business should have a policy of backing up its data periodically. If you are using a cloud solution, this is probably being done by your cloud provider. If not, it is important that you have a copy of your data on a different storage type and preferably off site.

Paying attention and addressing the areas mentioned above in your cybersecurity strategy will greatly boost your protection against cyber attacks. Considering the damaging effects that cyber attacks can have on your business, having a solid cybersecurity strategy is a small price to pay for protection against attackers.