The escalating surge of cyber-crime, underscored by the exponential growth of  cyber-attacks, makes it one of the most pressing issues facing businesses worldwide,  with professional services being high risk.

Here are HLB’s top 10 steps for protecting your firm from the potentially devastating.

1. Understand and classify your data

Identify and classify the sensitive data your firm possesses.

2. Backup! Backup! Backup!

Regularly back up your critical data and systems to secure offsite locations.

3. Be prepared

Develop an incident response plan to quickly and effectively respond to cyber- attacks.

4. Understand your current security situation

Knowing how exposed you are to cybersecurity threats will help you refine your security policy and improve resilience. Start your assessment now via the HLB Cybersecurity Portal.

Using our CSF Toolkit, a cybersecurity score will be generated, serving as a baseline for identifying your cybersecurity strengths and weaknesses. This will help you to develop a focused action plan centred on the NIST framework.

5. Educate your users
It’s crucial to provide regular cyber security awareness training to all employees.

6. Carefully manage access & identity
Ensure that only authorised personnel have appropriate access privileges.

7. Ensure proper password management

Encourage the use of strong, unique passwords and enforce password policies and implement Multi Factor Authentication (MFA) wherever possible.

8. Encrypt your data

Utilise encryption technologies to protect sensitive data.

9. Embrace the cloud

Leverage secure cloud services and platforms that offer robust security measures.

10. Ensure your software is kept up-to-date
Regularly update and patch your operating systems, applications, and software to address known vulnerabilities.