1. Proactive Security:
Vulnerability Scans: Use automated tools that discover known vulnerabilities in your systems and software. Run these scans regularly, such as monthly or quarterly, and patch critical vulnerabilities as soon as possible.
Penetration Testing: Hire experienced security professionals who can simulate real-world attacks on your systems in order to identify exposures that may not be seen by automated scanning. It gives a better determination of the overall posture of your security.
Stay Informed: Register to receive security news, subscribe to security blogs, and attend industry conferences on new threat, vulnerabilities, and best practices.
2. Secure Code and Software:
Secure Coding Practices: Implement proper secure coding best practices such as input validation, output encoding, and error handling to prevent the most common attacks, including SQL injection and cross-site scripting attacks.
Code Review: Have code reviewed by senior developers for potential security weaknesses before its go-to-production.
Software Supply Chain Security: Be mindful of the third-party vendors on whose software you are dependent; their code vulnerabilities could be affecting your systems.
3. Strong Authentication and Access Control:
Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA): At all those places where sensitive data access happens across all your systems and services, use MFA. This would add an extra layer of security because you are asking a user to provide something he knows, and also something he has, like his phone or security key.
Least Privilege Principle: Provide to each user only the minimum permissions they need to do their job. This limits as much as possible the impact of a one-compromised account.
Password Policies: Enforce strong passwords. It should be both uppercase and lowercase letters, digits, and special symbols. Encourage to change at regular intervals.
4. Network Security:
Firewalls: Use firewalls to filter out unwanted access to your network and to block attacks from hitting your systems.
Network Segmentation: Segment your network. For instance, separate your production systems from development systems to minimize the damage of a breach.
Secure Wi-Fi: Use strong encryption protocols like WPA2/3, configure your router using a strong password, and avoid using public Wi-Fi for sensitive works or actions.
5. Data Security and Privacy:
Data Encryption: Protect sensitive information that is stored in rest (on storage systems) as well as in transit (over networks). Use robust encryption algorithms such as AES-256.
Data Minimization: Collect and store only that information considered necessary to your business operation. Avoid collecting unnecessary personal information.
Data Deletion: Secure a process for deleting data when no longer required. Ensure secure tools for data deletion by ensuring it cannot be recovered.
6. Culture of Security Development
Ongoing Security Awareness Training: Educate the employees in cybersecurity best practices, phishing awareness, and the most common social engineering attacks.
Security Awareness Program: Periodically schedule security awareness programs to remind employees of the best security practices as well as to have them report suspicious activity.
Incident Response Plan Develop an incident response plan that outlines the guidelines for the actions your team would take when the event of a security breach arises. Include steps within the incident response plan as to how the incident may be contained, investigated, and remediated.