Looking for the Mistakes in Cybersecurity you are doing? It’s simple to savour our accomplishments. Once you stop a few breaches or go a long enough time without one, you begin to feel unstoppable. Even while our efforts are admirable, we shouldn’t become complacent.

Defenders must constantly look for opportunities to improve and areas where they have fallen short. Ten frequent cybersecurity errors are listed below, along with advice on how to avoid them:

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Failing to get executive support – Mistakes in Cybersecurity

It can be tempting to move forward without first receiving approval from the C-suite (you should ask for forgiveness rather than permission, right?). But in the long run, that can have unexpected repercussions. Try including the cost of a breach in the budget package if you believe your executives may object to the cost of some continuous security measures. They might be more willing to provide the essential measures now if there was that kind of price conditioning.

Not testing often enough

You did hear correctly. Any less (like once a year) is simply undervaluing your prior testing investment. Testing must be done both early and frequently. Put another way, if you add a new service, piece of software, suite, intern, executive, platform, or anything else, you increase the risk. You should scan daily if you can. Nevertheless, even the most responsible businesses may not always have that option, so testing at least once every three months is a good place to start.

Playing a purely defensive game

The best offence is the best defence, as we’ve all heard. And it’s accurate. Cybersecurity frequently receives a bad name for being exclusively defensive, which unfairly diminishes it. Cybercriminals frequently catch organisations off guard, and far too frequently, the SOCs on the ground have never dealt with anything similar to them. Deficiencies they have patched. Email scams that they have averted. However, a cyber incursion that triggers a red-alert, an APT, or even merely an advanced threat could be novel. By bombarding your digital and human nerve systems with offensive security measures like penetration testing and red teaming before day zero, you can get them ready for an attack.

Underestimating the human element

This is a dangerous mistake since you would be underestimating a significant cause of 74% of data breaches. The top attack vector last year, according to the Ponemon Cost of a Data Breach 2022 Report, was stolen or compromised credentials. Apparently, many of us are falling for the scams and disclosing critical information. And because we’re a reliable, consistent source of cash, black hats keep returning. You can enforce the principle of least privilege and implement a staff security awareness training (SAT) programme to tighten such controls.

Buying the wrong tools

Before purchasing on the newest and greatest (which none of your SOC can utilise), be informed. When your department is left racing to find someone with the cycles to train on it (and teach it to everyone else), your next-generation technology might become a this-generation problem if you’re not careful. Teams that are short on time frequently scrimp on learning, knowing only enough to “make it run” but not enough to “make it sing.” This undermines a significant portion of the original justification for purchase because those extra (and frequently costly) value-adds aren’t being utilised. Get the correct equipment. Purchase equipment that your SOC can utilise or quickly train on.

Thinking ‘compliant’ means “safe”

Possibly, but not today. Compliance currently refers to “pretty close but definitely best practice,” which is a nice place to start. However, it is not the be-all and end-all, therefore organisations must take appropriate security precautions. It is important to view compliance and security as two distinct entities that occasionally interact but serve independent functions. Whether or not you receive praise for compliance, identify the targets that pose the greatest risk to your firm and take steps to safeguard them. Make sure you are entirely compliant after that. You don’t want things to get derailed by an audit. Choosing the best security company can assist you in achieving both.

Not caring enough

The cybercriminals want you to be in this situation: careless and unaware. This is all-too-easy to happen when SOCs get overburdened with the 1,000+ alerts they must manage each day, let alone trying to go ahead with proactive preventive measures (or even strategy). Threat actors move when teams are overburdened because they are in a vulnerable position. If your resources are already stretched thin, the appropriate investment in the right area might relieve some pressure and enable you to accomplish more with fewer resources.

Invincible’ thinking

Small firms are prone to adopting this perspective, believing that an outside attacker wouldn’t respect them at all. That might be accurate if all potential attackers were pursuing huge sums of money and top-secret information. However, they aren’t. Numerous black hats rely on “small” payments, compounded dividends, and sold credential lists to support themselves. Any business that has users and logins has what they need. Any size of organisation should and may use this same way of thinking. Regular risk assessments, pen tests, SAT training, and red teaming can help your organisation prepare for the possibility of “it can’t happen to me” syndrome. Mistakes in Cybersecurity!!

Not watching your supply chain

We rely on each other’s assets and limitations as the world becomes more interconnected. Watching who is in your supply chain and what they are doing is crucial for this reason. They should ideally adhere to the same (or higher) security standards as your company. Better than that is unacceptable. Businesses are growing pickier about whom they want upstream from them as the field is expanding and taking partners across the globe is becoming easier. And why shouldn’t they? The number of software packages affected by supply chain assaults increased from 702 to 185,572 between 2019 and 2022. Potential partners should be carefully vetted, and contracts with suppliers should stipulate that vendors must do regular security testing and take precautions to secure sensitive data.

Dropping the ball on physical security

Ten years ago, it might not have been a problem, but it is now. Security executives looking to defend from all sides should prioritise physical security, or at the very least keep it in mind. Protecting the server room is necessary. By plugging into a network jack, “anybody” might join the network. A USB drive might be “dropped” in the parking lot or a false badge could be made by a social engineer. These nevertheless carry dangers. They always will be. Cybercriminals will resort to any methods necessary in order to achieve their goal; sometimes we’re caught looking so far over our heads that we miss what’s right under our noses. They prefer to be where it’s least expected. To keep staff on their toes, require various forms of identification when entering the facility, lock the server room with traditional (or modern) locks, and conduct periodic social engineering pen tests.

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Staying one step ahead of the competition will help you defend against cybersecurity risks. That includes both the outside parties and the cybercriminals themselves in this instance. Seventy-four percent of data breaches occur because we’re not being vigilant, according to the Verizon 2023 DBIR, and it’s a statistic that doesn’t have to be true.

Watching out for these ten frequent cybersecurity mistakes may make you safer faster than any one solution by itself, whether it’s being “too tough to hack” or just tougher than the competition. We have also written a brief guide for you if you’re interested in more advice on this subject! Mistakes in Cybersecurity.