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HEINO GEVERS, CUSTOMER
EXPERIENCE MANAGER,
MIMECAST
T
he threat landscape will continue
to evolve, cybercrime will rise
and criminals will become more
sophisticated in their targeted attacks. A
prevention-focused security plan will no
longer be enough for any business. What
worked for email security just six or 12
months ago is no longer sufficient, and the
days of relying exclusively on basic anti-
spam and anti-virus protection are gone.
The top priority in today’s volatile threat
landscape should be to plan, develop and
implement a cyber resilience strategy to
safeguard against email-borne threats and
mitigate risk.
A cyber-resilience strategy will ensure
that businesses are prepared in the event
of a cyberattack or breach and have the
required processes and technology in place
to identify, protect, detect, respond, and
recover from a cyberattack or data breach.
It requires solutions that defend against
a myriad of threats, back-up and archive
email data for fast recovery and provide
continuous access to email even when
attacks cause servers to go down.
Businesses should adhere to the following
rules, to protect themselves from email-
borne cyberattacks:
1. Employee training: As hacking methods
advance, a cursory look at an email
address or website URL is not enough
to ensure authenticity. Cleverly
designed duplicate websites and often-
unnoticed website redirects could see
employees inadvertently handing over
access to an organisation’s data or
systems. It’s essential that businesses
train employees on email-safety
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best practices and how to approach
suspicious emails with a critical eye.
2. Advanced security: One of the best ways
to keep businesses secure is layering of
security. Start off with good firewalls,
which should always be your first line
of defence against a breach of your
network. Then add extra layers to the
websites and apps your business uses.
Email is an organisation’s most widely-
used communication platform – it’s
also the number one application used
by adversaries for today’s advanced
cyberattacks. Businesses need a multi-
layered, advanced security approach to
protect themselves against email-borne
impersonation attempts, malicious
URLs, unknown malware attachments,
“
THE TOP PRIORITY
IN TODAY’S
VOLATILE THREAT
LANDSCAPE
SHOULD BE TO
PLAN, DEVELOP
AND IMPLEMENT A
CYBER RESILIENCE
STRATEGY.
spam and viruses. Furthermore,
the proliferation of advanced
cyberattacks, like ransomware and
the continued migration of email to
the cloud or hybrid environments,
is requiring organisations to rethink
email security.
3. Reliable data recovery: Ransomware
is fast becoming the most common
and damaging form of cyberattack.
But your attackers will have little
bargaining power if they are unable
to separate you from your data
permanently. That’s why a secure
and reliable interactive archive is
your best chance of tipping the
scales in your favour. An always-
available archive allows you to
restore your data should disaster
strike. Human error or technical
failure could also result in data loss
and a multipurpose archive enables
users to restore email accounts – on-
demand. Data should be always-
available, always-replicated and
always-safe in the cloud.
4. Business continuity: It’s not only
the data or monetary loss that you
need to consider, downtime could
cost you productivity and potentially
customers and revenue. Be prepared
to quickly and seamlessly switch
to an available service, should
downtime due to a cyberattack
occur. A seamlessly agnostic
continuity solution allows access
to everyday tools, like Microsoft
Outlook or G-Suite by Google Cloud,
in the event of an outage. If PCs or
the broader network are affected,
it’s useful to be able to access
email through the Web or mobile
continuity apps. n
www.intelligentcio.com
EDITOR’S QUESTION