Today, important and sensitive company data is stored digitally, making information security an extremely important concern. The risk of cybercriminals accessing this information or causing data loss has led many companies to use protective measures and tools.
However, it is necessary to know which tools to use, as well as which are the most appropriate in each specific situation. Because of this, we have made this complete guide on IS for you to understand the importance of adopting these protective measures for the business.
We will also show you the benefits of using them, the main mistakes that should be avoided, and the best way to implement IS in your company. Read on!
The importance of information security for business
The advancement of technology has meant that much of business processes have moved to electronic means.
The latest PwC Global Information Security Survey, conducted in 2018, reveals that 46% of the impacts suffered by companies due to cyber attacks compromised information about their customers.
Based on this data, one can understand the size of the criticality and damage that these attacks can provide to companies.
IS-oriented Firewall Management
One of the tools used to contain this problem is the firewall, which works as a barrier to prevent the entry of strange elements in the system.
In its configuration, it is possible to determine who can or cannot access the environment, which prevents undue access to data.
To ensure efficient protection it is necessary to manage it in an appropriate way, which can be either by blocking the entries or by allowing access.
In addition, it is necessary to constantly monitor to ensure that the defined policies are maintained.
Another important point is to always run tests before implementing any changes in your settings.
The ideal is to create a reversion plan for situations where you need to return the settings to a previous state.
Benefits of information security
The use of a firewall protects the company from numerous threats, such as the ones we will mention below.
Preventing DDoS attacks
DDoS attacks – Distributed Denial of Service – occur when several computers try to access a server simultaneously.
These computers, which are called zombies, are controlled by hackers. The server becomes unavailable or slow because of the overload due to several access attempts.
One of the benefits of using a firewall is to protect against this type of attack.
Basically, this is possible because the firewall determines which IP addresses can access the server.
Based on this data, the firewall acts as a barrier to other addresses that are not on the log of authorized connections.
Protection against Ransomware attacks
One of the biggest fears of many companies is the Ransomware attack, in which cybercriminals hijack data, encrypt it, and demand a ransom to return it.
The mode of infiltration of the attack is through files or programs installed on computers from untrusted sources, through e-mails with contaminated files, among other possible ways.
Ransomware has some variations, such as GoldenEye, WannaCry, Locky, among others.
The use of protection tools such as firewall and antivirus are essential to avoid this type of attack.
Through them, it is possible to restrict the transfer of files that may offer risks to the system, such as executable and compressed files, among others.
In addition, it is necessary to create security policies that must be adopted by all employees, as a form of prevention.
Blockchain Security
Technologies such as cloud computing and the use of mobile devices to access corporate systems have provided companies with a more convenient way of working, as ease of access allows employees to work from any location.
The gateways for cyber attacks can be very diverse, including through mobile devices such as smartphones or tablets.
Because of this, it is necessary to protect these accesses to avoid this being the way in which criminals can access corporate data.
One way to ensure this security is through blockchain technology, the same technology used to ensure the protection of the Bitcoin cryptocurrency.
Basically, the technology works through a chain of blocks, which are related to each other, so that each new block needs the validation of the previous ones.
It works as a distributed network where there is no single central administrator.
In this way, if an attacker manages to get into one point of the network, there is no way forward, because there needs to be validation of the other blocks.
