7 Most Common Areas Ignored While Maintaining Cyber-Security

While setting up a security plan for a particular network, most often the big picture gets covered ignoring small details which might prove crucial in future. If these minute areas are ignored, the cybersecurity belt will never be fool-proof. Here are seven such areas which usually skip IT security officers' notice but they should make sure that all these areas are covered in order to ensure utmost security from cyber attacks:



1. Keep a tab on your own people:

This area is called advanced persistent threat. In the security chain the weakest link is the end user. There are some people who are aware of the fact that no IT security policy will be applicable to them ever. They exploit this vulnerability too. But IT security officers should never allow this gap happen and complying with security policies, they should enforce the policies on everyone, irrespective of the fact who they are.

2. Escalation process should be appropriate:

Whenever a warning arises of an impending issue, there should not be further ignorance. But sometimes these alerts are ignored the most, leading to bigger problems. Sometimes the person who receives the alert doesn't have the authority to escalate it for further investigation. Sometimes they are also not able to locate those people who have the necessary authority. That's why a disastrous consequence cannot be avoided anyhow. If immediate action could be taken at the very initial period, then the devastating consequences could be avoided too. So it's very important that every staff has the knowledge to whom an alert has to be escalated so that proper action is taken as soon as a smallest sign of trouble arises.

3. Additional authentication:

It's pretty necessary but ignored most of the time. If some operation requires more than two people and one person among them is not present to launch the operation, then the other person should have dual authentication access so that the operation is not delayed anyhow. Authentication system should be appropriate everytime.

4. Have control on downloads:

IT security professionals should be very alert about which software is installed by employees. Keep certain limitations on admin rights on laptops, desktops and servers. There are so many commercial products in the market which can be downloaded by employees seamlessly. It's IT security professionals' responsibility to check that a machine is maintaining the ethics of a work environment.

5. Keep track of open source technologies through documentation:

A white list is popular but not sufficient all the time. A proper request for new software products and applications is required before installation. If open source components are in use then proper tracking is also required. There are several software applications which are partially or fully based on open source codes. If components' source is not known, then assessing the risk also gets tough and vulnerability becomes higher.

6. Have control on using company's equipment:

Web browsing capabilities of users must be controlled both inside and outside the premises if company property is used. Employees might not like web filters but compromised sites have their own vulnerabilities, not on the face all time time. If you are supposed to protect your network, you have to be strict Web browsing practices without any exception.

7. Put lock on browser on take-home machines:

Web filters are used in most cases in corporate networks. Some use client side Web filtering and restrict uses of a computer when a laptop of tablet has to be carried to home and worked via a private network. Though this filtering thing is not liked by employees, but this equipment has to be implemented for good of all, including those employees too.




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