Georgia Chamber: Increase business cybersecurity

ATLANTA — The Georgia Chamber Foundation, as a service to its member investors, recommends the following steps to help inform and increase business cybersecurity in the days to come.

Over the months, geopolitical tensions between the United States and Russia have heightened, due to varying interests in Ukraine. Now that Russia has advanced into Ukrainian territory, the United States, its businesses, and their respective cybersecurity infrastructures are at an even greater threat. Georgia businesses should begin to effectively adopt and/or utilize internal best practices to ensure the integrity of their cybersecurity infrastructures. Here are some useful steps:

Strengthen Externally Facing Assets: Regularly scan for weaknesses in your externally facing cybersecurity infrastructure, and work to repair such weaknesses. Implement and/or utilize two-factor authentication to protect the confidentiality of passwords and other forms of system credentials.

Protect Expensive Infrastructure and Back Up Pre-existing Data: Ensure that all critical information is protected through regularly backing up your firm’s data. It is recommended that data should be back up both locally, and online, with advanced protections.

Reduce Lateral Activity Across Your Systems: It is suggested that companies ensure that movement across departments, within systems, is limited. Recommendations also suggest that businesses should decrease the usage of remote desktop protocols that allow for broad access within systems.

Protect the Credentials of Your Users: Businesses should increase efforts that limit the access to privileged credentials by malicious and unauthorized parties. It is also suggested that businesses adjust permissions to an as-needed fashion, reducing the propensity for malicious and impermissible activity. Lastly, it is recommended that companies utlize “protected user groups” to prevent unwarranted exposure of user credentials.

If a business is experiencing suspicious and unusual activity, it should report such activity to the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, or a local law enforcement entity.