The importance of cybersecurity in today’s digital age cannot be overstated. With cyber attacks and security breaches becoming increasingly common, even in Northern Ireland, it is critical to take a proactive approach to security to protect your business and any sensitive information you hold. According to IBM’s Cost of a Data Breach Report 2023, The global average cost of a data breach in the financial year ending March 2023 was $4.45 million, a 15% increase over the last 3 years. For many businesses this could be highly damaging.
But there are steps you can take to protect your business, in this blog, we’ll discuss some best practices for ensuring the security of your software and applications and how you can partner with us using the latest AI security.
Security Tips for Your Business
First and foremost, it’s important to regularly review the security measures in place and ensure that your software is as secure as possible. Multi-factor authentication, brute force attack prevention, password strength and reset policies are all important first level preventions. 81% of all hacking-related breaches leverage stolen or weak passwords (Cisco 2023). It’s also essential to keep your web application’s software and dependencies up to date, as this is critical for addressing security vulnerabilities that may be present in older versions.
WebAuthn – The New Security Standard
One new standard for web authentication that we recommend exploring is WebAuthn. WebAuthn allows users to authenticate themselves to web applications using public-key cryptography, which is more secure and convenient than traditional password-based authentication methods. If you’re interested in exploring this option for your software, our team is on hand to answer any questions and help get you started.
Access controls are also important to review. Does everyone on your user list need access? Do they have the correct permissions? Implementing the ‘Principle of Least Privilege’ can help to limit the damage that a security breach could cause.
Enforcing encryption can help protect sensitive data by ensuring that it’s unreadable to anyone who doesn’t have the appropriate decryption key. Regular security assessments, such as penetration testing and vulnerability scanning, can help identify vulnerabilities and other security issues before they can be exploited.
GCD’s Support & Security
At GCD, we take security seriously. We regularly train our engineers on the latest security exploits, OWASP Top 10 attack vectors and security penetration testing techniques to ensure that when building your application, security is at the heart of what they do. But the work doesn’t stop there, you can and should put in place your own security measures to ensure the highest level of security for your business on an on-going basis.
To add this additional layer of security, we’ve partnered with an AI security solution that can automatically detect application vulnerabilities based on the most up to date security databases. This system uses automatic and continuous scanning to show you when and how your attack surface changes and what this means from a risk perspective, enabling us to help you determine what actions to take to protect your solution and business.
Even with the best security measures in place, security incidents can still occur. That’s why it’s important to have an incident response plan in place to help you quickly respond to and mitigate the impact of security incidents. Additionally, complying with regulations such as GDPR and only keeping the data that you need can help to reduce the potential impact of security breaches.
Have a Chat with our Team
Cybersecurity is a critical consideration for any business. By taking a proactive approach to security and implementing best practices such as those discussed in this blog, you can help to ensure the security of your business and any sensitive information. If you have any questions or concerns about the security of your software or applications, don’t hesitate to reach out to our team at GCD.
