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The technological advancements in computing, communications, software and hardware have fuelled significant growth in cybercrime. The ever increasing complexity of the Internet, user demand for multiple devices and the growth of attacks, means it's no longer if, but when, a breach will occur.

The scale of the issue is apparent when looking at statistics. For example, 47,000 security incidents were recorded in the USA in 2012 (Verizon). While many companies have focused on securing their networks and systems from external attacks, internal threats are repeatedly overlooked.

With breach related costs running into the tens if not hundreds of thousands, a business can be devastated both financially and in terms of reputation. For example, a local government was fined £70,000 for disclosing personal data in error and a health organisation was fined £100,000 for leaving personal data in a decommissioned building. This doesn't include legal fees for defence which can be considerably more.

To ensure maximum protection a business should focus on two key areas when planning their security. Their first step should be to secure their network as effectively as possible from both external and internal threats. Then, using this foundation, they must select and deploy the most suitable tools to facilitate the fast identification and remediation of attacks as they occur, so as to minimise breach impact.

SECURING AGAINST KNOWN THREATS
There are several solutions a business can implement in order to secure their business from known threats - for example anti-virus software and next generation firewalls to protect their network and users respectively.

Businesses must also protect themselves from internal threats, which can occur through either accidental or malicious activity. Up to 90 per cent of businesses experienced data leakage or loss of sensitive information in 2012, according to Watchful Software. Software can be deployed to help protect a business and ensure that confidential or sensitive data never falls into the wrong hands.

SECURING AGAINST UNKNOWN THREATS
It is impossible to protect a business against the unknown, and therefore until an external threat becomes known to a business they are vulnerable to attack. There are several products a business can employ in order to identify a threat as quickly as possible, while other technologies help prevent the impact of a breach to the business using remediation techniques.

Certain technologies can help a business analyse unknown applications quickly in a test environment, thus ascertaining if it presents a threat to the organisation. If a threat is identified it should not be allowed into the organisation.

Sometimes it isn't a matter of information within an organisation; it is the problem of managing and checking that information for misuse or malicious activity. Therefore a business may want to consider deploying a solution which will help to monitor all of its sources of information. For example, if you correlate the information from firewalls, door security and network authentication into one tool, you can create default actions which are triggered should a perceived anomaly occur.

A simple example would be the case where a user logs into their PC when they have not swiped their security pass to enter the building. Such an event could trigger an alert which could prompt investigation or disable access to that PC until the event is examined.

To maximise protection against both known and unknown cyber threats, businesses must look at securing their assets as much as possible as well as planning for a data breach, which is almost inevitable to occur. They need to create an integrated solution that seamlessly brings together security technologies into a complete end-to-end solution enabling them to identify, control, respond, remediate and mitigate the impact of a security breach. NC