Expository Essay on Mitigating Cyber-Security Risk in Business

Introduction

Cybersecurity consists of a comprehension effort of protecting business information systems as well as its composition resources such as computers, data, and networks from an attack. Generally, cybersecurity aims at maintaining the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of data and information (Hubbard & Seiersen, 2016). While cybersecurity risks/threat refers to an event or a condition with the capability of altering the normal functionality of the cyber system, which is the information system. This may be executed through destruction of the devices, unauthorized access to the system, data disclosure, denial of service, or the modification of data. In order to reduce this risk, the proper mechanism needs to be employed in the field of business.

Mainly, various cybersecurity risks that are associated with the business include:

a) Ransomware: This consists of malicious software such as malware that is delivered through malicious mails and tries to scramble the data to unlock the code.

b) Phishing: This is the act of gaining sensitive information from the system by an attacker through posing of contact that is trustworthy such as a bank. The attacker may use communication channels such as emails that may look too genuine.

c) Hacking: the attacker uses the computer in gaining access to the organization's information system mainly with the aim of accessing some data. Mostly, the attacker may apply the social engineering method for tricking the staff to reveal their logins.

d) Insider threat: This is associated with the leakage of organization data maliciously by the employees thus posing a risk to the organization

However, various cyber security mitigation processes help in ensuring the productivity of a business. For instance, prediction measures are utilized by different organizations to ensure they establish an attack before it ruins their system operation. Due to the continuous change in technology, it has become so hard for the organizations to completely keep themselves off from the external perpetrators since they also go per the changes in technology. However, some artificial intelligence programs have widely been utilized in ensuring the prediction of an attack before it submerges into the system. For instance, modeling tools such as those of the SPSS modeler can be used in the analytical analysis that is provided by other types of offerings such as Content analytics, the insight of identity, and global name. Also, some products such as Cognos that enhance the improvement of system performance management may work with SPSS in assisting the organization to track an anticipated attack and respond to the trends.

Also, the use of attack graphs tool has been widely used in determining cyber-attack prediction. The tool is used to show the criteria by which a hacker can easily break into an organization's computer networked system. The tool provides data that is analyzed to determine the weakness of the system. A substitute for the attacking graph tool is the Dynamic Bayesian Network (DBN) another statistical model tool that is used for probability estimation over time, thus revealing any available pattern present for an attack.

Another method for predicting cybersecurity risk is the one that uses the capability estimation, opportunity as well as intent of the attacker (COI). This technique is used in predicting the service the attacker would likely target based on the attackers' previous exploitation. Opportunity establishes whether the attacker has any information regarding the network and the type of network safeguards while intent determines the motivation of the attacker as well as social influence.

Despite the increased occurrence of risk associated with cybersecurity in business, the risks can be reduced through various ways such as:

1) Providing education to the employees: It is well known that employees are the most cause of data breaches in an organization. The employees mainly error innocently without their awareness of how hackers operate. Thus, for the organization to eliminate the possibility of data loss, it should educate its employees properly.

2) Appropriate deleting of sensitive data: A lot of caution should be applied when deleting sensitive data. It is recommended for shredding a document with information that is confidential before recycling. Also, confidential data should be eliminated from storage devices such as computers before disposing of them.

3) Strong passwords application in data protection: Generally, computer hackers attack passwords to access the data. Thus for the security of organizational devices such as computers and other system devices, including system accounts, the employee should switch from the default password to more strong passwords that are not easy to crack. Moreover, employees' passwords should be changed frequently.

4) The authorized employees should only access business computers: The organization system administrator should create a particular account for only the users. This would minimize access to business computers. Further, the action will also provide a limit at which the computer network is accessed.

5) Third-party security control authentication: Most businesses depend on vendors of the third party in most of the services such as processing of credit cards, payroll, and even supervision of the security functions a condition that may be a risk depending on the third party. Thus, before engaging a third party, it is important for the business their security standards by ensuring they go for the vendors that with updated security policies as well as those who go for internal audits regularly.

6) Encryption of data and information: The company should ensure their data is strongly coded whether stored on a device or cloud or when being transmitted over the internet. This would ensure no one reads the data since it can only be decoded by the person with the right key.

However, despite the risk associated with cyber securities, early warnings are issued by some systems on the possibility of an attack. The early warnings on a system are mostly determined by the early warning actions contained in the policy rule. Mostly, the policy rules are defined in the Event Condition Action (ECA) paradigm whereby they are used in determining the actions to be triggered for the mechanism enforcement. Generally, the use of AEWRC policy dynamically adapts depending on system state changes( Koyuncugil, 2011). This state may be changed based on the trigger of the system by an intruder trying to access an object in the system. Due to this, AEWRC may react to delaying, suspension, or abortion, a state that is reached from the interrupted policy decision. These changes signal' the possibility of an attack of a system, thus facilitating to quick response.

However, for a business to mitigate cybersecurity risks, it should adopt the application of the three primary multi-layered protection strategy that is described as detective, preventive or correlative strategy. For instance, the preventive mechanism may be applied through the application of techniques such as the installation of firewalls for preventing the system from external attack. Also, the use of risk predicting tools helps the organization in mitigating the risk since they are able to predict the occurrence of an attack and build the necessary defense mechanisms.

Also, other mechanisms used by the business in mitigating cybersecurity risk mitigation include the application of networking techniques such as the proper configuration of networking routers, hardware connectivity as well as the choice of the operating system to be used since they are the most base for an attack.

Further, a business can best mitigate cybersecurity risk through ensuring the software are up to date to fix the possible bags that might have resulted, installation of anti-virus protection software as well as investing in security training for employees.

The occurrence of a cyber-security risk may be reported to different parties in an organization in order to notify them before they are counted up by the attack and to avoid panic among the members in case of failure in the delivery of service. Depending on the position of an individual in the structure of the organization, the report will be delivered depending on your role in the organization's management. For instance, in the case of an organization's customers, the report would include general information that would reflect in other individual reports such as that of governing bodies, stockholders, government agencies, and employees. However, the specifications of the customer role would only reflect on the customers' report. This criterion reflects other individual reports whereby only their specified role would be reflected in their report regarding the cybersecurity risk.

Conclusion

Through mitigation of cybersecurity risk, companies would secure and enhance their growth. This would be facilitated by the trust that would be built towards the business by the customers due to increased security. Thus the company must ensure its systems are free from external attack to maintain the customer.

Reference

Hubbard, D. W., & Seiersen, R. (2016). How to measure anything in cybersecurity risk. John Wiley & Sons.

Koyuncugil, A. S. (2011). Surveillance Technologies and Early Warning Systems: Data Mining Applications for Risk Detection. N. Ozgulbas (Ed.). Information Science Reference.