5 Tips on How B2B Brands can Employ Cybersecurity for Data Protection

A Guide to Understand and Audit Cyber Security in E-Commerce

Prologue

In an era of digital renaissance & Internet of Things (IoT) & similar technologies such as Social, Mobile, Analytics & Cloud (SMAC), Big Data, Cloud Computing, etc., B2B marketers are exposed to hefty volumes of data (while tracking the digital footprints of the customers as well as data for demarcating their ideal personas) & hence are obliged to leverage cybersecurity for data protection. Cybersecurity becomes a foremost priority for marketers across the globe. Cybersecurity is an amalgamation of technologies, processes & practices designed to protect the networks, computers, programs as well as the vital personal data pertaining to the customers like their names, addresses, phone numbers, photos & email addresses. Millions of users across the globe are generating huge piles of data & are wary of their data security more than ever before. Moreover, owing to the international regulations for data safety such as GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) & CCPA (California Law), it is mandatory for marketers to employ cybersecurity for data protection or else hefty fines can be imposed for violating the regulations of Data Protection. B2B brands need to use cybersecurity for data protection as it promotes brand equity as well as helps retain the loyalty of the customers. Stéphane Nappo, the Chief Information Security Officer at OVH & the 2018 Global CISO of the year stated the importance of cybersecurity as follows: “It takes 20 years to build a reputation and few minutes of cyber-incident to ruin it.” How to Combat Cybercrimes by Leveraging Cybersecurity for Data Protection According to IBM Corp’s Chairman, CEO & President Ginni Rometty cybercrime is the greatest threat to any company in the world. Moreover, according to The Wall Street Journal, the cost of cybercrime in the U.S. was approximately $100 billion. According to a recent prediction by Juniper research rapid digitalization of customers’ lives & enterprise, records will increase the cost of data breaches to 2.1 trillion globally by 2019. The World Economic Forum (WEF) states a significant portion of cybercrime goes unnoticed particularly industrial espionage where access to confidential documents & data is difficult to spot. According to Microsoft, 20% of small to mid-sized businesses have been targeted by cybercriminals. Cybercrime has led to an upsurge in the market for cybersecurity products & services, which is expected to grow from $75 billion in 2015 to $175 billion by 2020. Consequently, the cyber insurance market is also witnessing a spike – and is projected to grow from $2.5 billion in 2015 to 7.5 billion by 2020. The following measures can be taken by the B2B organizations to leverage cybersecurity for data protection: 1. Understanding Cybersecurity & its Elements: Cybersecurity, also known as cyber security or information technology security refers to the protection of the computer systems from malicious threats of damage or data breach. The protection involves safeguarding hardware, software, electronic data as well as protection against unauthorized access to the data centers & other computerized systems. Cybersecurity has essentially the following 5 core elements:
  1. Application Security
  2. Information Security
  3. Network Security
  4. Disaster Recovery &
  5. End-User Compliance
  • Application Security:
This includes procedural methods for protecting applications from malicious external dangers by using the software, hardware & procedural methods. Since modern applications are accessible across an array of networks, it becomes important for the marketers to deploy cybersecurity to protect applications especially software applications. Software applications are vulnerable to a wide array of threats such as unauthorized access, manipulations to accesses, modifications, stealing or even the deletion of sensitive user data.
  • Information Security:
This element of cybersecurity resonates with risk assessment & management. Having an in-built cybersecurity arsenal for foolproof application security & risk management helps B2B marketers in securing their data. For example, cryptography tools secure messages during transmissions & digital signatures enhance information security by asking individuals to validate their identities before they can gain access to a particular piece of information.
  • Network Security:
In an era of Internet of Everything Network Security includes activities designed to protect internet users. This cybersecurity element is associated with the protection of usability, integrity & safety of the network data. Unauthorized elements such as the following are halted from entering a system:
  • Trojan horses & viruses
  • Zero-hour/Zero-day attacks
  • Spyware & adware
  • Hacker attacks
  • Data Inception/theft
  • Denial of service attacks
  • Identity theft
  • Disaster Recovery:
This element of cybersecurity is characterized by IT disaster recovery plans, strategies to recover data & restore hardware, applications & data on time, leveraging IT disaster recovery plans.
  • End-User Compliance:
This element of cybersecurity focuses on the sensitization of employees on IT security management. This also includes the skill-development of employees to handle potential threats. General pieces of training about data security also needs to be given to employees after a while to acquaint them of the IT policies, global regulations for data protection such as GDPR & equip them to safeguard the confidential company information in times of a potential threat. 2. Comprehending Cybersecurity threats: According to Kellton Tech despite all efforts of law enforcement & IT security measures, there isn’t a single widely used operating system that can be termed 100% secure.  To leverage cybersecurity for data protection the B2B marketers need to understand cybersecurity threats. We live in an era where we are surrounded by a wide array of digital pieces of equipment, gadgets & devices. No single B2B enterprise these days is bereft of computerized or automated control systems. Therefore, nowadays it is more difficult to leverage cybersecurity for data protection than it ever has been. The article titled “Cyber Crime Costs Projected to Reach $2 trillion by 2019” by Forbes entails that ‘Crime Wave’ is an understatement when one considers the costs that businesses are suffering as a result of cybercrimes. Therefore, marketers need to gear up to leverage cybersecurity for data protection, which including imparting pieces of training to the employees to imbibe in them a culture of cybersecurity & to help them to keep abreast of the latest cybersecurity norms across the globe. 3. Evaluation of the Cybersecurity solutions: According to Gartner threat intelligence is “evidence-based knowledge, including context, mechanisms, indicators, implications and actionable advice, about an existing or emerging menace or hazard to assets that can be used to inform decisions regarding the subject’s response to that menace or hazard.” Threat intelligence can be developed in B2B employees so that they can effectively leverage cybersecurity for data protection. Threat intelligence, in turn, can be tactical, contextual or automated.
  • Tactical:
An ideal tactical threat system can effectively manage all kinds of external threats to leverage cybersecurity for data protection. This includes hassling for firewalls, malware protection, web gateways, email security as well as for intrusion prevention. Having an impactful business intelligence infrastructure & proper analytical skill to detect threats on time can help the B2B organizations make the best of their tactical threat intelligence.
  • Contextual:
This threat intelligence technic works by focusing on niche or industry-specific cyber threats to leverage cybersecurity for data protection. While correlating data to improve the precision of cybersecurity for data protection can yield accurate information to strengthen cybersecurity, it is also useful for organizations to understand the importance of structuring data across varied security technologies & fact that correlation isn’t causation.
  • Automated:
Automated threat intelligence systems use API to allow communication from a devise to support faster collaboration & business decision making by leveraging cybersecurity for data protection. In the case of potential data breaches enterprises must reduce time to detect the same & time for remediation without being apprehensive. 4. Having a Modern & Integrated Business Intelligence System: B2B enterprises must invest in effective business intelligence systems that need to be shared across several departments at potential cyberthreats. Having an extended network characterized by connected devices helps. Actionable intelligence coupled with security solutions exclusive for brands helps in making the best out of cybersecurity for data protection. 5. Strategize & Run Employee Training Timely: To effectively leverage cybersecurity for data protection, the first step is to establish security policies & define them accurately. All the employees within an organization must be essentially be given some form of training so that they can learn about the basics of the data protection & keep abreast of the latest global regulations on data protection such as the General Data Protection Regulation by the European Union & the upcoming California Law. Better still the employees must also be trained on precautionary measures such as refraining from opening suspicious emails & typing URLs in search bars directly. Furthermore, each system should have a strong password which under no circumstances can be shared by employees with their peers. Many organizations also penalize employees for violating data security norms. Bringing It All Together According to a report by Opentext “The average time it takes for a company to identify that a data breach has occurred is estimated at 197 days. Another 69 days elapse, on average, before a breach can be contained. Those companies that manage to speed their response time save considerably. Companies that contained a breach within 30 days saved an average of more than $1 million.” Thus, it becomes essential for B2B organizations to consider leveraging cybersecurity for data security seriously. Installing firewalls & anti-virus protection, securing innate devices of brands, having a data backup system & an effective admin control to monitor the complete users’ activities end to end are only the bare essentials of leveraging cybersecurity for data protection. The organizations dealing with vital information pertaining to customers’ data can use enterprise content management systems to leverage cybersecurity for data protection. Individual documents can be expressed in code within ECM which ensures that even high-level administrators can’t access the document without the consensual authorization from the ECM user interface. Leveraging cybersecurity for data protection should be a collective responsibility of everyone within an organization & every employee should make conscious efforts towards the same. We, at Valasys Media, design custom-made B2B services to match the needs of our clients & help them with their core bottom line endeavors such as an optimized Return on Investment (ROI) & improved customers’ experiences (CX). Our services are strictly GDPR complaint & include lead generation, account-based marketing, lead nurturing, <ahref=”https://valasys.com/event-promotion-services/”>event promotion services, list building services & content syndication services. For the furtherance of perennially healthy sales pipelines or for optimizing your marketing endeavors, get in touch with our team of experts.

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