How to Prepare for a Cyber Attack

Smartphone virus malware trojan notification or alert. Hacker attack, Mobile security vector concept.

Cyber attacks are continually becoming easier to execute and harder to escape. Therefore, the best defence is to pro-actively prepare for a cyber attack when and if one does occur. Reactively responding to a cyber attack can cost you severely in downtime, productivity and potential business. This blog will outline some of the most effective ways your business can appropriately prepare for a cyber attack.

Employee Training to Reduce Human Error

One of the easiest ways to prepare for a phishing attack is to approach one of the root causes. Human error is hugely responsible for a significant portion of phishing attacks. In-fact a study in the U.K. found that human error was the cause of 90% of the phishing attacks. In order to negate this issue, proper training and awareness must occur in the workplace. This can be done through workplace seminars, infographics and even reading blogs like ours.

Read our guide on how to spot a phishing email.

Best in Business Anti-Virus

Another good way to prepare for a cyber attack is to equip your business with a sophisticated Next-Gen Antivirus. Even if your team aren’t well aware of typical hacking tactics, Next-Gen AV should detect a cyber attack before it has the chance to meet an employee.

Milnsbridge provides SolarWinds’ SentinelOne to our Small Business IT Support customers. SentinelOne uses artificial intelligence and machine learning to better detect potential cyber attacks. It also provides users with a detailed report following a cyber attack with visibility into things like entry points and a recreation of the attack itself.

Email Spam Filtering

Email-borne phishing attacks are estimated to cost around $1b per year to industries. These attacks use tactics such as social engineering, phishing emails continue to easily trick people. However, mistakenly falling victim to a phishing email can be pre-emptively avoided by using an email spam filtering service such as SpamTitan.

A combination of employee training/awareness, sophisticated Next-Gen Antivirus and an email spam filtering service can be hugely effective in negating the risk that phishing emails can bring to your business such as downtime and data breaches.

An MSP with a focus on Managed Security

Finally, the most important aspect of preparing for a cyber attack is to partner with a Managed Service Provider (MSP) such as Milnsbridge Managed IT Services. An MSP with a particular focus on Managed Security as a Service (SaaS) will be better equipped to prepare your business for a cyber attack.

This is done through offering a range of security services to create a secure operating environment. These services include: Next Gen Antivirus, email spam filtering, patch management and much more. Read more in depth about our Managed Security services.