How to Prevent Cyber Attacks in 2024

By now many organisations will have their core cybersecurity action plan on how to prevent cyber attacks for 2024, but have you considered the question Why is Cybersecurity Important for your organisation, and more importantly, has your organisation developed its cybersecurity plan of action for 2024? Although in the current environment it would be foolhardy to say that any level of plans or preparation can prevent a cyber attack, particularly against a determined or targeted threat actor, nevertheless steps can be taken which significantly reduce your organisation’s cyber risk and exposure so that you are able to protect your organisation from the majority of cyber threats it faces.

Ransomware attacks against Australian organisations continued to increase in 2023, leading to several high-profile data breaches and instances in which Australians’ personal information and highly sensitive government and corporate information were released to the public via the Dark Web. The complexity of Australia’s geo-political situation continues to increase, and Australian organisations in 2024 can expect to be targeted by both State Actors and Cyber-criminals. Although the ultimate motives of threat actors vary, their goal is to access sensitive information or sensitive systems. Following that they may seek to extort money, steal information, steal identities, disrupt business processes and activities – or a combination.

Suppose your organisation holds personal information and/or performs important societal or business functions. In that case, you have a very serious responsibility to protect the people whose information you hold, as well as the integrity of the critical organisational functions.

Here are 5 actions that should be high on your priority list if you understand the question “Why is Cybersecurity Important” and the steps you need to take as senior management in an organisation or ensure you fulfil your cybersecurity obligations if you are a company director.

1. Conduct a Personal Information Audit

A Personal Information Audit is a detailed exercise to understand where, how and what personal information is stored within your organisation. This will ensure you are fully aware of what personal information your organisation collects or holds, the value of that data, where it is held, and who has access to it. Personal Information audits should be updated annually.

2. Conduct a Cybersecurity Hygiene Assessment

A Cybersecurity Hygiene Assessment utilises a People, Process and Technology approach to help your organisation understand its current security posture, address vulnerabilities, and implement effective measures to protect against cyber threats. Regardless of which cybersecurity framework you may be following (ISO 27001, Essential 8, NIST) or if you don’t measure your cybersecurity against a specific framework, it’s important to adopt a continuous improvement attitude towards cybersecurity. An annual Cybersecurity Hygiene Assessment improves your Cyber preparedness by assessing your current state and agreeing on planned activities for the year to improve your organisation’s resilience. In many cases, this may not require investment in new technology, but rather tweaking of processes to optimise your existing infrastructure.

3. Undertake Cybersecurity awareness training and executive wargames

Your organisation should conduct cybersecurity training on 2 levels:

• Periodic cybersecurity awareness training for all staff focusing on phishing, social engineering, ransomware and other key risks that your organisation is exposed to by everyone accessing your digital systems.
• Cybersecurity wargame exercises that simulate real-world cyber-attack scenarios to enable your organisation to test its response strategies in a controlled environment. This helps identify areas for improvement that might not be apparent during routine security assessments. Lessons learned guide future cybersecurity planning and response efforts.

4. Review key suppliers

Managing third-party cyber security risk is a critical challenge for organisations. Australian organisations from small to very large all rely on third-party suppliers to varying extents, as a strategic pillar of efficient business operations to improve service delivery and reduce costs. Your organisation most likely shares critical and sensitive data and documentation with service providers, which become data custodians of the original information. It’s critical to understand and review the steps they take to safeguard this information. Our earlier blog provides specific steps your organisation can take to manage third-party supply risk.

5. Undertake regular vulnerability scanning and penetration testing

Regardless of the cyber security processes and tools your organisation has in place to monitor and protect your environment, ongoing system testing helps your organisation to proactively identify and mitigate security weaknesses. Your organisation’s IT systems and cybersecurity controls aren’t static – system updates, patching, new personnel, and new integrations, are just some of the ways in which your security configurations may have changed or may require changing. We recommend a mix of:

• Vulnerability scanning, which uses software to identify if your organisation’s systems and applications have potential known security vulnerabilities; and
• Penetration testing, which combines automated vulnerability scanning technologies and a variety of tactics and techniques, including custom-written exploits, simulating real-world cyber-attacks on your organisation’s systems, networks, or applications to identify potential vulnerabilities and weaknesses. It is one of the most powerful and effective ways to understand and improve your organisation’s security posture in the face of evolving cyber threats.

How to Prevent Cyber Attacks in 2024

Regardless of whether or not your organisation has an internal cybersecurity team, third-party cybersecurity support is vital as part of a holistic cybersecurity approach to protect your organisation and its digital assets from an ever-evolving cyber threat landscape.

Contact CyBiz to help your organisation take steps to prevent cyber attacks in 2024, or for support in any of the 5 actions recommended above.