Be prepared for cyber security fallout, warns expert

by Marlon Madden

Always assume a cyber attack will happen to your company.This advice has come from a US-based cyber security expert Amy Zegart, who said this kind of thinking would always keep businesses on their toes with a protection plan.

The Co-Director of Stanford University’s Centre for International Security Cooperation said cyber crime remained a major problem for companies and countries.

However, she recommended that companies consider some main steps to avoid a cyber attack on their operations.

“Cyber crime is an enormous problem. I would say for companies I would recommend three things; the first is, don’t leave the door wide open. Most cyber breaches are as a result of very basic lapses like weak passwords and lack of multifactor authentication. So just fixing those basic problems can dramatically improve your protection,” said Zegart.

“Number two, assume that the cyber attackers are going to get in and you have to figure out how to operate while you are infected, so you need to have triage plans – how are you going to communicate with your customers, how are you going to make sure that the most important information in your organization is the most protected,” she said.

Zegart also recommended that companies quickly identify the weak link in their operations, which she said could sometimes be the vendors that they do business with.

Using the massive data breach of Target’s gateway server in late 2013 through its vendor Fazio Mechanical Services as an example, Zegart said while Target did “a lot of things right in cyber security and had a sophisticated software to detect penetration, “they did not think about their vendors”.

“So always ask ‘how secure are my vendors into my company?’ because the weakest link will let the bad guys in,” she warned.

In relation to countries, Zegart said governments continued to make progress in protecting critical information through the “sharpening of policies”.

“I think increasingly in this administration in the United States we are going to see more outreach to allies to work together on cyber security, among other priorities,” she added.

Zegart’s comments came during the recent 17th Royal Fidelity Group Economic Outlook online forum while speaking on the topic Emerging Technology, Geopolitics and the Future of Intelligence.

marlonmadden@barbadostoday.bb