Proactive anti-fraud in cyber resilience: why is it important?

In today's ecosystem, losses at the hands of enterprising scammers are as inevitable as the changing seasons.

It's no longer about "if" fraud will happen; rather it is about knowing how to prepare for an attack, how you will be attacked, how to react and how to prepare for the future. Cyber ​​resilience is a pressing issue, as it determines how you will survive ever-changing cyber attacks.

Definition of cyber resilience

Cyber ​​resilience refers to a company's ability to avoid, prepare for, respond to, and recover from a cyberattack.

What is cyber resilience?

Cyber ​​resilience is the ability of an organization to prepare for a cyberattack, respond appropriately, and recover properly from any damage caused.

Cyberattacks know no bounds. Even organizations with entrenched policies and leadership can fall prey to it. Digital fraud and cyberattacks are like any other business problem: you need to identify and mitigate them to keep your business, employees, and customers safe.

And what's even more frustrating? Threats are constantly evolving, and cyber resilience means adapting to the changing cybercrime landscape for better monitoring and vigilance.

Cyber ​​resilience in a downturn

As the international economy battens down in anticipation of a looming recession, businesses should be aware of rising fraud losses that always coincide with tough times.

As finances dry up and margins come under closer scrutiny, the impulse to cut budgets can be very tempting, but compromising the strength of your security stack will inevitably make it harder to bounce back from a breach . Resilience is about coping with change. , after all.

What to do, then, when adapting to a changing world means opening new loopholes for cyber attackers? As your staff increasingly want to work from home, in a purely digital environment, how do you ensure that this structure does not expose a number of your business vulnerabilities?

First, your business should be aware of the four branches of risk it relies on and how each could be affected by digital attacks.

Identify the elements of risk in your business

Every company can segment its risk appetite into four different silos, all of which are critical to a company's stability, and therefore its ability to bounce back from an incident.

When implementing a cyber resilience protocol, consider:

Strategic risks

These can be considered meta-risks, coming from outside of your business environment. Factors such as media coverage that alters public trust and reputation, regulatory changes, geopolitical tensions or a fight with a competitor.

These risks are obviously older than cybercrime and cyber resilience, but they are just as vulnerable, and an unprepared attack on this silo is just as damaging as a hit to your cash flow or your usual workflow (BAU).

Financial risks

The most obvious risk and, therefore, the most obvious thing to protect is your metaphorical safe, where you keep your very real capital.

While an all-out assault on your digital vaults (or your bank's) would be unexpected in its audacity, it's hard to think of a modern cybercrime that wouldn't somehow interfere with your cash.

On top of that, disruptions in this area of ​​your business can lead to other headaches later on, especially when it comes to documenting your tax complexities or complying with financial mandates. Operational risks

These are the risks related to the physical operation of your business. This includes threats to the well-being of your employees, controlling the physical elements of your workspace, supply chains and third-party service providers.

A cyberattack targeting the security of your employees or your physical premises would damage the status quo, as well as your reputation in the short and long term.

Information and cyber risks

The risks associated with your company's data and cyber functions are, of course, both the most vulnerable and critical line of defense. As your company's workforce, data, and products become more digitized, they naturally become more susceptible to attack by an attacker that exists in the digital plane.

Consider that a working-from-home employee base is essentially digitized, as are your networks, and it's very likely that many levels of your infrastructure will be aided by enterprise technologies. However, that same aircraft is also where you should mount a proactive campaign against malicious actors.

Only after developing a