Must Know Cyber Security Risks and Measures in a Technologically Changing World
Taking various cyber security risks into consideration, the confidentiality of sensitive information must be prioritized at all times. Because we live in a rapidly changing world, online security is just as important as physical security. Unlike prior generations, confidential and sensitive information is most likely stored on virtual databases. It is critical to understand that information, stored online, locally, or on an external storage device, is never completely secure. New methods of gaining unauthorized access to data (hacking), sensitive or not, are being developed and discovered daily.
A study done in 2019 showed that 60% of small companies close within 6 months of being hacked. Study’s findings may not be directly applicable to larger corporations, they do emphasize the importance of effective cyber security policies.
A lack of productive paranoia, and untrained employees are the root causes of numerous cyber security breaches in power plants.
Some Dangers
Productive paranoia is a technique used to proactively prepare ahead of time. BuildIng reserves, preserving a margin of safety and honing discipline in good times and bad. This will enable you to handle certain situations from a position of strength and flexibility. It is important to understand that productive paranoia is not a technique used to absolutely prevent cyber security breaches. Rather to analyse and pinpoint where your cyber security weaknesses lies. Seeing what actions should be taken if your system does get breached.
Software updates are what keeps the software on your system up to date. It also fixes problems that were discovered after the product was released. Software updates are usually overlooked because they can take a long time Avoiding regular software updates exposes your system to hacking. Fortunately, software updates usually contains cyber security, ultimately increasing the chances of preventing a user from hacking.
Having employees without cyber security training is a majojr risk for your company. One employee accidentally sharing any private information with a third party puts the company at considerable danger of compromise. They may have incorrectly considered to be trustworthy but who is not. To help employees distinguish between online fraud, they should be provided with training. This includes proactively increaseing your company’s cyber security and avoid as much online fraud as possible.
Many hackers who attempt to gain unauthorized access to power plants are doing so for the sole purpose of breaching a power plant’s critical internal infrastructure (Ex. a power plant’s external firewall) to gain access to the internal networks and control the system environment. Despite efforts to improve security, so single messure can garantee a systm’s safety.
Below are three effective power plant cyber security measures we recommend considering and implementing:
1. Critical infrastructure cyber security team
A critical infrastructure cyber security team is a group of people working together who’s sole purpose and mission is to secure your company. Below is a list of the typical roles a cyber security team should have:
- Chief Information Security Officer (CISO)
- Security Manager
- Security Engineer
- Security Analyst
Responsibilities
The CISO’s responsibilities include defining your organization’s entire security backbone and planning the strategy, programs, policies, and procedures to help protect the organization’s digital assets.
The Security Manager’s responsibilities include running a security team and providing both technical guidance and managerial oversight.
The Security Engineer’s responsibilities include building a security architecture, engineering security systems and working closely with various teams to ensure continuity and speed of releases. A Security Engineer specializes in SIEM (Security Information and Event Management), endpoint security, penetration testing, vulnerability assessment, threat intelligence and other specific areas of security engineering.
The Security Analyst’s responsibilities include detecting, investigating, and responding to incidents. Security Analysts have the power to recommend new technologies, install them, and provide training for team members on how to use these technologies.
Each of the above roles has a different level of responsibility and power, however, each role is equally important as you want to maximize your company’s cyber security coverage and lessen its vulnerabilities.
2. Engage in constant network monitoring for suspicious activity
Your company’s critical infrastructure cyber security team should do constant pro-active network monitoring for suspicious activity to expose threats and root them out before they can do any harm. In doing this you would proactively and aggressively be scanning and safeguarding your network from cyber-attacks. It is important to note that passive attempts to detect malware are not effective and pro-active monitoring should be part of standard company protocol and procedures.
Everything from large scale electronics, to your personal computer, to small scale equipment monitoring devices should be kept in consideration when engaging in network monitoring. Equipment monitoring devices such as our A.I. driven machine learning based Software as a Service (SaaS), “SMARTPOWER”, are typical targets for hackers as the information gained can be used for multiple devious reasons. For that reason, we have ensured to make SMARTPOWER impenetrable from a cyber security point of view.
3. Always broaden your understanding of cyber security
The best method to clearly distinguish between threats and non-threats in cyber security is broadening your range of knowledge. Having a wide understanding of cyber security and cyber-attacks is crucial as it could save you and your company valuable time, effort and money. The better prepared you and your company are, the easier it would be to avoid any form of cyber-attack that could occur.
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