Breathe
By Ana Cecilia Pérez
As 2024 begins, we should renew not only our personal and professional goals, but also our commitment to cybersecurity. In an era where digital life permeates every facet of our daily lives, protecting our personal and corporate information is crucial. This year, cybersecurity resolutions should be at the top of our lists, whether as an individual, an entrepreneur or a member of an organization.
First, updating passwords and implementing two-factor authentication are essential steps. These simple but powerful practices strengthen our defenses against unauthorized access. In addition, keeping our devices (computers, tablets, virtual assistants and smartphones) and applications up to date is critical. Updates not only add new features, but also fix critical security vulnerabilities that can put our privacy at risk.
Awareness and continuous education from the individual user to the employee in a large corporation about cybersecurity is another key resolution. This means being aware of the different risks we are exposed to, among the most popular are the different variations of social engineering such as phishing, smishing, vishing and others that have also had a considerable impact such as ransomware, attacks through the internet of things, among many others.
At the corporate level, companies must strengthen their focus on cybersecurity. This includes not only protecting the technological infrastructure, but also ensuring that cybersecurity is an integral part of the corporate culture, it is important to remember that during 2023 70% of SMEs in Mexico were affected by cyber-attacks, according to INEGI in our country there are 4.9 million SMEs, representing more than 97% of the country's economy.
Finally, having an incident response and business continuity plan is essential, especially if trends lead us to question if we are the victim of a cyber incident:
- Do I know how to react, does my company or the company where I work have trained personnel and clearly defined and tested action protocols?
- Affecting the continuity of the operation of my organization's business processes, do I have a way to recover the continuity of the operation while minimizing the impact of not operating?
- Do I have the trained and skilled personnel to prevent, detect and respond?
- Do I know the economic, reputational and operational cost of its impact on my organization?
In summary, our cybersecurity resolutions for the new year should focus on strengthening our defenses, increasing our awareness, and preparing to respond effectively to incidents.
* She has a degree in Computer Science with more than 20 years of experience and several industry certifications such as CISA, CISM, CRISC, CISSP and ITIL Service Manager.
She has served in different roles and functions in the cybersecurity industry. Member of the NYCE Cybersecurity Committee and the AMITI Cybersecurity and Women in Technology Committees.
She is the author of the NMX-I-319 Responsible Schools in the Use of the Internet standard, which has been declared effective by the Official Gazette of the Federation since October 2019.
Founder and managing partner of Capa 8, a company whose mission is to support, advise, train and accompany organizations in their decision making related to Information Security and Cybersecurity.
The opinions expressed are the responsibility of the authors and are absolutely independent of the position and editorial line of the company. Opinion 51.
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