6 Cybersecurity Policies Every Business Needs to Implement

Featured article by Emily Roberts, Independent Technology Author

With over 80% of business information stored in the cloud, information security is now a necessity rather than an option. Important and sensitive information needs to be protected using the right security measures to prevent them from falling into the wrong hands. Of course, security measures are not the only instruments to use for better cybersecurity.

You also need to implement the right security policies across the organisation. More importantly, you need to make sure that all employees and stakeholders understand the security policies and how to follow them. To help you get started, we are going to take a look at the six cybersecurity policies your business needs to implement.

1. Support as a Key Element

The foundation of good cybersecurity is good maintenance. A well-designed, well-configured IT infrastructure can only do so much without sufficient support and regular maintenance. Fortunately, you don’t need an extensive IT team to maintain your systems.

The latest trend is outsourcing IT support. Thanks to capable service providers like Texaport.co.uk, a leading IT support company based in Edinburgh, businesses can have IT specialists handling even the most complex maintenance tasks.

Outsourcing IT support covers everything from maintaining the internal data cabling and networking to making sure that your employees’ Office 365 accounts are well-protected. You can choose to offload some or all of the maintenance tasks to service providers.

2. Know Your Whys

The ‘whys’ are just as important as the ‘hows’ in information security. This applies to all business information, particularly to customers’ details and other sensitive information. If you are collecting data from various sources, you need to know why you collect the data in the first place.

Understanding the whys behind data collection is the first step towards deciding what data to collect and store. You don’t have to collect every detail unless it is absolutely necessary. By minimising the amount of data you gather and store, you are also minimising your attack surface.

The same is true with other less-sensitive business information. Some files need to be archived and stored over a long period of time. Others can be deleted once they are used or they are no longer relevant. The more you understand your whys, the more efficient your business information system will be.

3. Account for Human Errors

Cybersecurity policies related to human errors and the potential hazards they cause are among the most important ones to implement. You have to have rules about how information is accessed and shared. At the same time, you also need policies that govern access to the cloud environment and solutions used by the business.

Of course, these policies need to be strengthened by clear mitigation plans should an error result in an information breach. Clear mitigation plans let you react to security issues quickly and efficiently. When working with an external IT support team, you can also take into account recommendations from the IT specialists.

4. Advanced Access Management

Sticking with the possibility of human errors causing security problems, another key component to add to your security policy is advanced access management. You can’t let users – employees – access the entire cloud environment unnecessarily. This is a huge security risk that needs to be managed.

What you want is compartmentalisation. Each member of the organisation needs to have a unique ID with access to only relevant files and sections of cloud-based solutions. The unique accounts also need to be protected using strong passwords; you can set up a policy for passwords as well.

Logging is the next part of the equation. At this level, all user activities must be logged and recorded. This allows you to trace access, modifications, and other activities in the cloud to a specific user, a specific time, and a specific terminal.

5. Add Detailed Logging

Speaking about logging, user activities are not the only things you need to record for security purposes. You also want to record changes to business information and the general flow of data. When a new user’s information is stored, for instance, you want to log the source of that information, the time of data collection, and the explicit consent from the user.

Logging is a security measure whose importance often gets underestimated. Logging actually creates a clear chain of custody for every piece of business information circulating in the system. When there is a security issue to handle, both the IT support team and management can trace the activity back to its source.

6. Incorporate Security Training

As mentioned before, a common understanding of the importance of security and how to maintain information integrity is important. Adding policies that provide security training for employees is another step you want to take in order to better protect your business.

There are a lot of security training programs to choose from, starting with the most basic such as how to maintain the safety of offline and online files to more advanced topics on information sharing and GDPR compliance. Craft the right training regime for employees to create a truly secure business environment for everyone.

These elements, used as policies for better information security, are essential to the safety and growth of your business. They are easy to implement and allow you to protect the future of the business immediately.