Keeping your company’s cyber hygiene in check
One potential method that may lower your company’s cyber insurance cost is maintaining an airtight cyber hygiene routine. By being proactive, you can help reduce the risk of cyber attacks, allowing your insurance company to offer you better policies with lower premiums. It’s a win for your company and should be a priority when searching for a cyber insurance policy that works for your needs.
Remain aware of your assets. Make sure you have a way to audit event and incident logs. You’ll also want to identify any devices and software that have access to these assets -- whether it’s authorized or unauthorized. This will help confirm that your assets aren’t being accessed by unauthorized personnel.
Your company may want to configure and monitor all admin and access rights. Set and follow privilege rules to ensure that access to important data isn’t given to unauthorized employees or outsiders. Additionally, take care to deliberately manage hardware and software configurations. Monitoring the use of network protocols, ports, and devices is a great way to practice better cyber hygiene. Pinpoint any unauthorized traffic and shut it down before data can be breached. You will also want to configure and implement security protocols on all firewalls and routers to help mitigate cyber risk.
Whenever an issue or vulnerability is found, patch it immediately. Make use of risk-based patch management strategies to prioritize severe vulnerabilities. Ensure all software and applications are updated with the latest versions to avoid potential exploits.
Data recovery and protection should be another key part of your company’s cyber hygiene routine. Keep proper backups and enforce data protection. Multi-factor authentication can be a great way to protect data and limit access to important assets.
Implement sandbox analysis protocols to facilitate examining and blocking any malicious emails or other communication systems. Make use of the latest versions of security solutions on all layers to avoid exploits and older vulnerabilities. Use your cybersecurity platform to spot early signs of attacks and intrusions, then remediate these attacks before they can breach data and assets. Make use of up-to-date machine learning and artificial intelligence systems to increase monitoring capabilities. This way, your security professionals will be more likely to spot vulnerabilities before they’re exploited by cybercriminals, allowing you to patch them as early as possible.
Finally, train and test your systems and security professionals so that they are always aware of the latest cyber risks and current global events. Keep your security team equipped to handle cybersecurity events to which your company may be susceptible. Run test scenarios to increase response time and train security teams to prepare for a real attack.
Taking all of this into account can help reduce the cost of your cyber insurance premium, while also mitigating the overall risks your company may face.
