What Cybersecurity Strategy Has Markedly Improved Your Organization’s Defense?
To enhance your organization's cybersecurity defenses, we asked technology executives for their most effective strategies. From investing in employee training to fostering a holistic security culture, here are six strategies these experts have successfully implemented.
- Invest in Employee Training
- Monitor Access with Audit Logs
- Implement Two-Factor Authentication
- Adopt a Company-Wide VPN
- Enforce a Zero-Trust Policy
- Foster a Holistic Security Culture
Invest in Employee Training
Training our employees. While tackling major tasks is essential, it's often the people who are the weakest link. By investing in thorough training for our employees, we can significantly strengthen our overall performance.
Monitor Access with Audit Logs
The major way we avoid security incidents has to do with having detailed access logs. We have application access logs as well as technical access logs that monitor manual and code-level access to our key services like database and cache services. We plug these logs into a stand-alone UI for easy review and a separate call service that monitors these logs and triggers phone calls to key representatives for quicker resolution.
Implement Two-Factor Authentication
One of the most impactful cybersecurity strategies we've implemented at Lunar is the integration of two-factor authentication (2FA) across our platforms. This additional security layer has significantly bolstered our defenses, making it exponentially harder for unauthorized entities to compromise our systems. By requiring a second form of verification, typically through a mobile device, we ensure that access to sensitive areas of our website and client data is tightly controlled. The implementation of 2FA has not only enhanced our security posture but also instilled greater confidence among our clients, knowing their valuable data is protected with cutting-edge technology.
Adopt a Company-Wide VPN
Investing in a company-wide VPN solution has proven to be a game-changer for our cybersecurity posture. By encrypting all network traffic and masking IP addresses, we've created a secure tunnel for our employees to access company resources, regardless of their location or network. This not only protects sensitive data from prying eyes but also enables our team to work remotely with confidence, knowing their online activities are shielded from potential threats.
Enforce a Zero-Trust Policy
Implementing a zero-trust policy is one cybersecurity strategy that has significantly reinforced our organization's defenses.
Operating on the principles of 'never trust, always verify' means that every user, device, and application—inside or outside the network—is continuously authenticated, authorized, and validated before gaining access to resources.
This makes it extremely challenging for potential attackers to breach our networks.
Foster a Holistic Security Culture
Securing critical infrastructure and data from attack is a combination of tools, knowledge, and culture. The single most effective IT strategy is treating each of those aspects equally and as parts of a holistic defense, instead of fully relying on only one. Standing up network connections behind MFA, routinely resolving technical debt—these are just table stakes in 2024.
As IT leaders, it's critical to foster a culture where end users always feel empowered to validate and recognize potential issues, and where everyone has an equally important role to play in security and protection. The price of security is often, unfortunately, convenience, and while that can be frustrating to end users at times, allowing it to create an adversarial relationship between IT and the rest of the organization is of equally great risk.
