Staying Vigilant Against Cyber Threats

In Partnership with Ascend Agency

The world is much more digital today than it ever has been. Ever since the birth of the internet, technological advancements have been happening at a much faster rate. Not only that, but the events of recent years have also contributed to a sharp growth in digital culture and the eCommerce economy. 

When the COVID-19 pandemic spread across the world it forced many businesses to close their doors permanently while many others transitioned to remote operations. This major shift in the economies dynamic created a huge period of growth, specifically in online sales and the revenue that was generated through other digital avenues and platforms as well. 

As this digital expansion unfolded, naturally, more and more digital threats were leveraged against businesses, brands, and other organizations trying to stay afloat during these trying times. 

Now, as the threat of the COVID-19 pandemic has started to fade, cybercrime is increasing even further, making it absolutely crucial for organizations to invest in cybersecurity defense in order to protect some of their most sensitive assets. 

“To stay resilient in the face of targeted attacks, security leaders need to better understand, communicate, and mitigate cyber risk across their digital attack surface, including the organization’s external-facing surface.”
– Jon Clay, Author, Micro Trend – 

1. Evaluating the Digital Attack Surface

One of the first steps to take when working on a modernized cyber security defense plan is to conduct a full evaluation of the digital attack surface. The digital attack surface has expanded significantly for many brands and organizations during the most recent digital expansion. 

In simple terms, the digital attack surface can be thought of as overall surface area; the larger the area you have to defend, the harder it is to maintain that area. Think of the expansion and eventual downfall of ancient Rome. 

The more web pages, websites, social media accounts, disparate technologies, and various other customer touch-points, the more vulnerable your brand is to an incoming attack from a cybercriminal.

“Many organizations don’t even know about some of the blindspots their security systems are leaving vulnerable; this is why a thorough digital attack surface evaluation provides so much value to an IT or cyber security team.”
– Omid Semino, CEO and Founder, Diamond Mansion –

After conducting a thorough evaluation of the digital attack surface, your IT and cyber security professionals should be armed with the information they need to appropriately address security gaps. This is vital in preparing for cyber security attacks that could happen at virtually any moment in time. 

“If you can catch your gaps before they’re taken advantage of, that is huge. That’s always the goal with security, but in today’s day and age, there are so many malicious users and actors out there. Small businesses and startup companies especially need to be cautious.”
– Karim Hachem, VP of eCommerce, La Blanca –

2. Enabling a Unified Cyber Security Platform

Currently, it’s widely considered best practice to have a unified cyber security platform that your IT and cyber security professionals can use. A powerful cyber security platform will come with robust 3rd party software integration, and will grant your team as close to 100% visibility over the entire technological ecosystem as possible. 

This level of transparency will give your team the advantage they need to properly discover, assess, and neutralize cyber security threats. 

“Having full visibility over your ecosystem is crucial because that’s how you can pinpoint weaknesses and problem areas. When it comes to cyber-security, it’s all about comprehensive coverage.”
– Ryan Rottman, Co-Founder and CEO, OSDB Sports –

There are other benefits to using a unified cybersecurity platform as well. For instance, these platforms help protect consumer data by fortifying consumer endpoints. This is an important note to make because a high-quality cybersecurity platform will prioritize both external and internal security protocols. Not just one or the other. 

“If you’re only looking at your internal processes, your external touch points will be vulnerable. And the same is true of the opposite; modern organizations need a cyber security solution that will give them protection at every possible intersection.”
– George Fraguio, Vice President of Bridge Lending, Vaster Capital –

3. Attack Surface Management

There are a lot of different aspects to attacking surface management or ASM. In general terms, attack surface management is an ongoing discovery process focused on unveiling cyber security vulnerabilities, analyzing and monitoring those vulnerabilities, and ultimately overseeing any point of possible attack a cybercriminal could target. 

This is an important note to make about the attack surface management principles because unlike other cyber security tactics, ASM is conducted with a hacker's perspective in mind. 

“Attack surface management is rather far-reaching when you consider everything that gets folded into it. From external points of attack like internet assets to internal weaknesses, and sometimes even internal sabotage, whether intentional or not. It’s a very robust field.”
– Sasha Ramani, Associate Director of Corporate Strategy, MPOWER Financing –

Because of the tactics and strategies involved in attack surface management, the tasks are often performed by professionals known as ‘ethical hackers.’ These are tech pros who are familiar with the thought patterns and behaviors of most professional hackers. Ethical hackers use this information to replicate malicious hackers attacks in order to test and better prepare cyber security defenses.

“Being able to sort of test-run your system against potential hacks is like running an ultimate fire drill. It’s really exhilarating when the security system does the job.”
– Lina Miranda, VP Marketing, AdQuick –

4. Mitigating Risk 

A huge concept in the world of cyber security is risk mitigation. Nothing is ever going to be 100% risk free, but the less risk involved, the better. This is at least the case when it comes to cyber-security, whereas in investing a little bit of risk can pay off with some awesome rewards.

In cyber security, though, there is no reward with high-risk, only downfall. This is why it’s important to prioritize cyber security well before it’s actually needed by your organization. 

“Cyber security is something you want to be prioritizing basically from day one, especially if you’re a tech startup company with loads of consumer data. All that data is a gold mine to a hacker, so you want to give them as little opportunity as possible.”
– Steven Vigilante, Head of New Business Development, OLIPOP – 

If an organization falls victim to a cyber security threat, they can lose revenue, experience damaged systems or equipment, see customer turnover, and end up with totaled infrastructure. These are costly prices to pay, and are totally avoidable with the integration of a powerful and sophisticated cyber security platform. 

“If you’ve ever seen a cyber security attack unfold, it can nearly bankrupt an organization. If you’ve started your own company, cyber security should be a main priority.”
– Sumeer Kaur, CEO, Lashkaraa –

5. Staying up to Date

The technology and information fields are constantly evolving and this means that cyber security practices, technologies, and software also have to continually evolve in order to match the new and innovative technology that comes onto the scene. This is another major concept in cyber security that is well worth learning. It isn’t enough to implement a cyber security solution and then leave it to sit unattended, unmonitored, and un-updated. 

“A huge mistake that new organizations make is that they don’t do anything with their cyber security system once it's in place. But it’s a technology like anything else; it’s meant to be actively used and updated regularly.”
– Rachel Blank, Founder and CEO, Allara Health –

If you don’t keep your cyber security system updated year after year, or even on a more fast-paced schedule than that, you’ll open yourself up to vulnerabilities as outside technologies continue to innovate and evolve while your cyber security tech gets stale. 

“If you aren’t keeping your cyber security system updated, you’re practically asking to be targeted by a malicious user. Cyber security is a necessity for every business in today’s day and age.”
– Max Schwartzapfel, CMO, Fighting For You –

A few Last Thoughts on Cyber Security

The emphasis on cyber security has been growing over the past few years, and not without warrant. As society adapted to the new norms set in place during the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, we entered a new age of the digital economy. E-commerce saw a major boom, and organizations all over the world expanded into the digital marketplace at a rapid rate. 

With so much economic activity happening digitally, it was only a matter of time before cyber criminals and malicious actors took note and upped their game. Now, organizations are relying on IT and cyber security teams more than ever in order to protect some of their most valuable assets. 

“As the saying goes, the best defense is a good offense. To have a good offense, you will need to keep up with the latest changes in the cybersecurity landscape as well as effective strategies for mitigating new and increasingly sophisticated threats. According to Gartner, the ‘changes in the way we work, together with greater use of public cloud, highly connected supply chains and use of cyber-physical systems have exposed new and challenging attack surfaces.’ This leaves organizations more vulnerable to attack.”
– Mary Ann Richardson, IT Analyst, CMR Executive Advisory –

Image sourced from Unsplash