Three Takeaways from Evans Bank’s
“Cyber Hygiene” Presentation

 

 

This past May, InfoPreserve team members attended a “Cyber Hygiene” presentation sponsored by Evans Bank.  It was outstanding! We enjoyed the presentations by the Secret Service and Homeland Security discussing cyber security protocol and “preventive maintenance” against financial and data-theft crimes on the web. LOTS of valuable information to glean, and reflect on.

Here’s three takeaways (plus some additional observations and “writing this down”s) from the presentation:

1) The “Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency” (CISA) is a
relatively new department within Homeland Security that works with companies and organizations to implement plans and provide services to prevent cyber-crimes.

2) The Secret Service described how they can rapidly react to mitigate the damage suffered by organizations that are victims of cyber-crimes and, often, can help recover stolen funds.

3) In the case of both, the services they provide are free to any business or organization. Considering how much money they save, this is a great use of tax dollars.

Some additional takeaways, especially relevant to InfoPreserve’s commitment to helping businesses better organize their data:

Understand and Document your Internal “I.T.” Network

If your organization lacks a contemporary, accurate diagram and inventory of your internal information technology infrastructure, the door is swinging wide open for ransomware attacks and other breaches. This includes threats both external and internal.

KNOW YOUR SYSTEM. Even if you’re not “the I.T. guy” it’s advantageous to have an overview of how your system is set up, and how it should optimally work. Assess how third-party access is obtained, and who can obtain access.

Are You CIRP-ing?

A cybersecurity incident response plan (CIRP) is a written document that provides instructions for IT and cybersecurity professionals on how to respond to security incidents.

Most businesses need a cybersecurity incident response plan because a industry regulatory obligation requires it. EVERY business should have one, and the “Cyber Hygiene” presentation relayed that 47% of medium-sized businesses have no CIRP plan.

A believable stat, and that’s a problem.

An effective CIRP plan helps an organization: recognize, assess and respond with dispatch to an incident, and plan a prudent, appropriately escalated response. The end goal: minimize the effects of the attack. There are some templated plans on this website to review if you’re starting at the ground floor.

The Parallels Between Cyber Security & What InfoPreserve Does

Much like a company helps organizations develop a CIRP plan or gain better comprehension of their IT network – InfoPreserve helps businesses manage their information with a “work smarter, not harder” approach.

How your business produces content – documents, records, files, even email correspondence – and how you organize this content plays a major role in your work force’s time management, productivity output, and even their contentment and satisfaction with their jobs!

A comprehensive organization of your critical business documents and records online means this information needs to be secured, and big-name “dump everything in here for free” platforms pledge security but cannot deliver on that pledge all of the time. Full stop.

InfoPreserve always prioritizes the security of our customers’ information, so we are always looking for new and innovative approaches to further strengthen our PreservationVault platform. The “Vault’s” robust role-based permissions mean YOU are in charge of who gets access to what documents and records, including the expedient revoking of access permission, if called for.

These are services of which every business and organization should take advantage! We’d be happy to share what we learned in detail with anyone interested! Contact us today.

Get in touch with us.