How to Prepare for Cyber Attacks This Holiday Season_

1. How to Prepare for Cyber Attacks This Holiday Season?

2. The holiday season is here. Amidst the festivities, entrepreneurs often fail to remember that the threat of cyber attacks doesn’t cease to exist when one looks the other way. According to experts at Deloitte, it is estimated that globally, during the holiday season, online traffic increases by more than 15% compared to the rest of the year. This increase in online activity is due to the online shopping activities and promotional activities emanating from customers and brands respectively. At the peak of the holiday season, this increase in online activity results in around $218 billion in revenue for businesses globally. Experts from CISA (Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency) periodically warn entrepreneurs to strengthen the cybersecurity solutions of their respective businesses. The reason is simple. Cybercriminals tend to ramp up their illicit activities during the holiday season globally in a bid to gain access to customer-end financial data. Brands also hire black hat hacking groups in a bid to disrupt the online transactions of their rivals. So, what are the long-term steps that an entrepreneur can take now to keep their venture safe during the holiday season? There are several ways to keep a business safe online. Some of them are mentioned in the sections below –

3. Both the CISA and the FBI encourage business owners to invest in real-time continuous threat-hunting solutions offered by providers of thebest cybersecurity consulting services. Real-time continuous threat hunting solutions have been created to offer bespoke preemptive threat hunting that includes – • Searching for malicious activities • Stopping attacks • Reduction of damage to data after a cyber breach occurs. Often cybercriminals would use malware that is designed to remain hidden in plain sight that can carry on stealing huge packets of data without being detected. Most of the time, these stolen packets of data are encrypted and the source(s) of the data are corrupted remotely so that the owner of the data has to pay a huge ransom in a bid to get their digital property back. Regular threat hunting minimises vulnerabilities

4. The whole aforementioned ordeal can be avoided when an entrepreneur invests in real-time continuous threat-hunting solutions. Furthermore, entrepreneurs can also train their in-house IT staff and workforce members to keep an eye out for the following signs – • Unusual network activities • Unauthorized access permissions • An exponential increase in the read volume of the central database(s) • Logins or data access requests emanating from locations outside the business premises • Online activities during odd hours. Keeping an eye out for the above-mentioned signs is a simple yet effective form of cyber security awareness training that can help entrepreneurs save a lot of time and money.

5. Businesses heavily rely on proprietary software and applications for all kinds of business-critical operations. Entrepreneurs need to make sure that the proprietary applications their employees and clients use are periodically – • Scanned for vulnerabilities • Updated to keep the application(s) free from unauthorised backdoor entry points and • Patched whenever vulnerabilities are identified. Businesses that use outdated software are sending out invitations to cybercriminals to launch a massive cyber attack against them! To keep such instances at bay, business owners should invest in dedicated vulnerability assessment and scanning solutions offered by leading cybersecurity consultation agencies. Vulnerability assessment and scanning solutions fall under the category offunctional cybersecurity solutions that are developed to reveal in real-time all the weak spots in an enterprise-level IT infrastructure. Furthermore, by investing in custom vulnerability assessment and scanning solutions, entrepreneu Periodic scanning, updating and patching of onsite software are essential

6. Entrepreneurs also need to make sure that their in-house cybersecurity personnel are trained to keep tabs on access points. At the same time, real-time identification of an individual accessing in-house data is also crucial to keep security breaches at bay. For the best results, entrepreneurs can partner up with reputed cybersecurity solution providers and let them retrofit the IT infrastructure with a custom IAM (Identity and Access Management) solution. The purpose of an IAM solution is to keep real-time tabs on logins and grant data access permissions. Furthermore, custom IAM solutions offered by reputed cybersecurity firms also allow entrepreneurs to manage access requests coming from their employees, business partners and customers. On top of this, IAM solutions can also simplify access level management for individual employees with the help of AI and context-based analytics. The result is a cybersecurity solution that is ever-evolving thud enabling entrepreneurs to have more control over the online activities of their venture. Access and identity management solutions is a long-term solution

7. The best preparation is to be aware of basic online security practices. For the best results, entrepreneurs should hire cybersecurity consultants and let the experts train their workforce. For more details, the reader is requested to consult with veterans of the sector likefnCyber. Conclusion

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