Sydney And Melbourne’s Leading Cyber Security Strategy & Design Firm

Most companies that suffer a cyber breach admit to having immature processes around key security controls. Lack of documentation and poor implementation are usually a symptom of poor security processes, putting organisations at a greater risk of a cyber breach. Depending on the size, complexity and industry of your business, your information security policy will need to be guided by your cyber strategy to ensure there is management oversight in the right areas, and that detection and monitoring are appropriately assigned to the responsible people in your business.

Designing appropriate remote access policies is instrumental to controlling who is accessing internal systems, the devices that are used, the security status of those device and the location from which access is being requested.

Research has shown that cyber awareness training offers invaluable protection against the threat of social engineering. Social engineering has been classed as one of the single largest threats for data leaks given the high likelihood of human error. According to latest OAIC data breach figures, close to 35% of all data breaches are caused by human error, making it one of the largest risk factors in assessing your cyber maturity. Gridware actively works to facilitate staff seminars, workshops and training to help improve staff cyber knowledge and awareness. With effective policies and training, threats such as phishing, scams and malware can be mitigated at the source when your employees are armed with the knowledge to detect and prevent.

Data leaks can not just cause financial damage, but the effect on company reputation can far outweigh the former. Often when traditional protection falls short, cyber insurance is another line of defence in reducing the impact of a breach. Things you may need to consider when looking for cyber insurance are that you are covered for data liability, meaning the financial consequences of a data breach and unauthorised access to sensitive customer and client information. It is also worthy considering protection for cyber espionage or extortion, often referred to as ransomware, being the theft of data from your company being extorted by an attacker for a ransom payment. Finally, and in light of recent changes to Australian legislation, it may be worthwhile having your cyber insurance cover you for fines which may result from failing to report a data breach to the Office of the Australian Privacy Commissioner. We can work with you and your insurance broker to assess and recommend the appropriate cyber insurance for your business.

With recent changes to the Privacy Act, in addition to new regulations by the EU GDPR, we can guide your team to understanding your procedures and systems need to adapt to comply with the law. We also work with your teams to integrate those regulations and standards into company procedures. Gridware can review the benefits of implementing existing technologies on the market that might make managing compliance with these laws more economical for you. for example, instead of hosting customer information on secure servers in the cloud, we could asset off-site backup technologies that might be more suitable for your business, or vice-versa. You can rely on us to manage your legislative requirements because we’re not just cyber security experts, but we’re compliance, risk and governance experts.

Any cyber security strategy will have a technical aspect in addition to risk-based assessments of your company’s cyber security exposure. It is best to have your security architecture analysed in light of the services or products you offer, to ensure your cyber security strategy is heading in the right direction. There are abundant resources out there that can be utilised in your business to help improve security, but it can be burdensome and overwhelming to decide where resources should be prioritised. Gridware can provide you with industry experts who can advise on the best cyber security solutions your company can implement to improve security and comply with regulation.

What many anti-virus software doesn’t pick up or assess, is the fact that most cyber breaches will occur from zero day exploits, bugs in software which is not known to the original vendor, make normal and ‘safe’ everyday software vulnerable for attack. The issue with zero day exploits, is often knowledge of their existence is only known on the deep web, and often inaccessible to the everyday analyst. Gridware has a comprehensive presence and knowledge of deep web vulnerabilities, as well as in-house developed tools, to regularly scan all installed software across a network, and cross-check our vulnerability database for security exploits. This is a key area that is overlooked in traditional cyber security audits, and one we are proactively mitigating.

Your company also needs oversight into the information security programs of your key service providers.