The Australian Signals Directorate (ASD) developed a list of strategies to employ in order to mitigate cyber security threats.
It may be true that no set of cyber safety plans can be guaranteed to protect you against all cyber threats without failure, however it is recommended that businesses properly implement the eight points from the Strategies to Mitigate Cyber Security Incidents. Known as the Essential Eight, they make it a lot more difficult for cybercriminals to infiltrate your systems or compromise your data.
The mitigation strategies that make up the Essential Eight are as follows:
- patch applications
- patch operating systems
- multi-factor authentication
- restrict administrative privileges
- application control
- restrict Microsoft Office macros
- user application hardening
- regular backups
While properly applying the Essential Eight is an excellent starting point, ASD considers it only to be the baseline of cyber security in organisations. If you’re in an industry that is a highly desirable target, such as healthcare, the Essential Eight should just be the foundation. They are effective in stopping regular spam attacks, but act as the minimum measures that businesses need in place. Further measures can then be applied in areas more vulnerable to sophisticated attacks. It is important to ensure the Essential Eight is also be considered and implemented when new technology is added into your operating environment.
ASD also provides their Suggested Mitigation Strategy Implementation Order, which goes further in depth on how to appropriately secure your systems with the Essential Eight. Organisations should internally agree upon a security maturity level suitable for their environment, and then increasingly apply security measures until the required security level is reached.
Audit your systems today to ensure they’re meeting the Essential Eight, and safeguard your data.
For further information on ASD’s Essential Eight, visit their website for more.
