Top 3 Low-Cost Strategies to Reduce Cybersecurity Risks Significantly

You may be spending hundreds of thousands of dollars in cybersecurity products, but if you are not doing the following 4 things, then you may be still at significant risk. More importantly, these services and products does not cost you a lot.  

Employee Security Training: 

Why Employee Security Training? 

(82% of breaches involves human element) 

Human error is one of the leading causes of cybersecurity breaches. According to research, 82% of data breaches involve a human element. It could be someone clicking on a malicious link, inserting a USB with malicious software on it or a social engineering using LinkedIn or Facebook. By educating employees on cybersecurity best practices and potential threats, organizations can significantly reduce the risk of incidents caused by genuine mistakes or lack of awareness. 

How do to it effectively? 

Employee security training should not be considered as a just a check box after you subscribe to one of the readily available solutions in the market. It needs to be ongoing and comprehensive. Read our comprehensive guide on how to run an effective employee security training here. 

How much does it cost? 

For a company with around 50 employees, the cost is around $2000-$3000 annually for the subscription. A comprehensive approach involves a little bit of planning and may take a few hours of your employees every month. 

Installing anti-malware on all your devices? 

Why is anti-malware Important? 

Imagine an employee clicks on a malicious link and downloaded a file that contains the malware. Your first line of defense is a good anti-malware running on the device. This prevents any further damage from propagating through your network.   

How do to it effectively? 

Create an onboarding process that will ensure that all new or repurposed devices will have anti-malware applications installed on it before it is handed off to employee. Ensure that your device management system that validates that all systems have anti-malware installed on it.  

 How much does it cost? 

Anti-malware solutions can cost between $3.00 to $7.00 per user/month, depending on the various features that you chose to add.  

Continuous Vulnerability Management 

Why Continuous Vulnerability Management? 

You gave your employees the right level of training, you had a good anti-malware running on every devices. However, new exploits created by hackers can get past these barriers until it is widely known. Malicious players always find new ways to break through these barriers. If they manage the install a malicious code on one of the employee devices, it uses known vulnerabilities to navigate through the system. If you have unpatched devices in your system, it makes it easier for the bad actors to propagate through the system. It’s not just servers that needs to be patched. There can be IoT devices, cameras, sensors, UPS and other such devices on the network. All these devices when unpatched, poses risk.  

 How do to it effectively? 

Until recently, organizations ran periodic vulnerability scanning by themselves or bringing in an external party. But with the explosion of devices in the environment, it is better to have a continuous vulnerability monitoring system in place. These systems scans your entire environment for any known vulnerabilities and giving you daily reports. A good patching process needs to be in place for the tool to be effective. 

 How much does it cost? 

Continuous vulnerability scanning can only cost about $0.80 cents per device per month. If you have 100 devices in your environment, your annual cost is less than $1000.