Understandably, most chief executive officers focus on the business aspect of the company. Their main goal is to make sure a company keeps gaining profit and everything is run smoothly. But there is one important thing that most CEOs overlook and it’s cybersecurity.
You may think that if your company is smaller or has nothing important to steal, you would be unpleasantly surprised to find out the truth. Hackers steal information whether your company is a huge enterprise or a small e-store selling bakery.
The worst thing about hacker attacks is that the average cost of recovering from it is around 2.5 million dollars. Most small companies with yearly revenue less than 1 million can’t even recover from that. The reputation of the company also suffers from losses, for example, hacker attack on Uber in 2016. The company has reported the loss of information of more than 57 million Uber network users. Keep that in mind when working on cybersecurity, and here are 5 things to learn.
Risk Management
One of the best ways to avoid hacker attacks is to invest in risk management. It’s not news that any company can become a target of a hacker attack, but some companies are more vulnerable. Consider calculating the risks of getting attacked by hackers. Your company may be of great interest to hackers, for example, if you have big databases of users with their financial information. If you get attacked and the information is stolen, your reputation may be ruined.
Consider cybersecurity risk management considerations to avoid being attacked or to be able to recover from attacks. The problem of most companies is that they believe hackers are a bunch of criminals who attack boldly. It’s not true, most hackers are like viruses, they evolve and adjust to any circumstances, so you should keep optimizing your security. The statistics show that companies who invest in risk management have better chances to stand against the attacks and recover in case the attacks are successful.
Privacy Regulations
Probably, the best example of privacy regulations is offered by the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). It is implemented in the EU and it protects the users and their data. It works not just for the EU, but for companies and individuals outside of the EU as well.
Implementing such regulations are both great for protecting data and posing your company as a reputable and reliable business. More and more organizations as well as governments implement these measures. Your company needs to implement these measures, especially if your company works in the European Economic Area, or has some relation to European businesses.
Why is implementing such measures an important task? First, you have to comply with all the demands posed by GDPR, most of them are related to cybersecurity and data privacy. So, not implementing those measures and getting attacked by hackers will completely ruin your reputation. Users simply won’t ever trust your business. Remember the Facebook-Cambridge Analytica scandal? Exactly! And you don’t want to be involved in any similar situation, right?
Compliance
Some people might think that meeting the laws and all regulations has nothing to do with cybersecurity, and that’s where they are wrong. Governments work on creating laws and regulations that protect individuals and organisations from cyberattacks, so meeting the demands is an important step in protecting your company.
It’s a must for a reputable company whether it’s a small e-store or a big enterprise. Compliance allows your company to pass all audits and you won’t face any problems with your government or with governments of other companies in case you have partners in other countries.
Just think about it, if you get attacked and you didn’t meet the regulations, your reputation will be ruined. If you have met all the demands, your company might even be protected enough to stand against the attack. But if not, at least you will be able to recover from the hacker attack.
Treating the Reputation Damage
As hard as it is to cope with this thought, your company might be successfully attacked by hackers. If your business has met all the regulation demands and had sophisticated measures implemented, then it would be easier to recover in terms of financial damage. It’s something that could happen to any company as hackers tend to adjust to any security measures implemented by companies. But financial losses are not the only thing to be worried about.
Reputation is one of the most valuable things your company has. You can recover from losses as long as your company has the trust of clients. But the moment you lose your good name, it will be too difficult to regain ground. You should consider creating an approach to treat the reputation damage. It’s a must to react to those reputation attacks as fast as possible, ignoring them is not an option.
Protecting the Supply Chain
As your business grows, the supply chain grows as well. It’s essential to check whether all the parts of the chain can recover from hacker attacks. Of course, it’s nearly impossible to prevent every attack on your chain, but it’s important to make sure that you are ready to react to security breaches. As CEO, it’s a must to work with the IT department or IT specialists in your company. The main goal would be figuring out what link in the chain is the weakest.
If the whole supply chain is ready for the attack, it would be easier to defend your company. And if the attack happens, your specialists would be able to quickly react to breaches and recover from the dealt damage.
The Bottom Line
As CEO, it’s essential to consider every aspect of your business. Cybersecurity is one of the most important aspects to consider, especially considering the level of skills of modern hackers. Hacker attacks could happen anytime, and some of them may damage your company. But that’s something that every company could face in the future. So it’s important to be able to react to hacker attacks and to recover from the losses.
Author Bio: Daniel Wanderson is a ghostwriter, blogger and editor. He likes playing football, dancing and even singing, but his professional areas are IT, history and SEO of his work website dota2-bets.net.
Daniel is a guest blogger. All opinions are his own.
