For a couple of months now, we've all been paying careful attention to what's going on in Ukraine.

As a human, it is sad to witness a conflict breaking out and the devastation it is causing to the region. We are all aware that cyberattacks are becoming an aspect of warfare.

We also know that cyberattacks can be targeted, but they can also have unexpected effects and have a greater impact since they can extend beyond the initial target.

Our guard has been raised as security professionals, and I'm sure you are asking yourself a number of questions:

i. What does this mean for me and my clients?

ii. So, what should we do?

iii. How can I tell whether I'm ready?

iv. How can we tell whether an assault is widespread?

v. Will my cyber insurance cover a current attack?

And I could go on and on about the issues that business owners and their clients are concerned about.

Where should you concentrate your efforts?

So, where do you begin? Keeping it simple is the solution. Concentrate on increasing awareness and attentiveness. This is nothing new to us in these modern times.

We've been receiving regular updates from our government on the hazards of travelling during COVID. Our understanding of travel has grown, and we must continue to raise our awareness of cyber risks.

There has been an increase in cyberattacks in the last few months. There are a few publicly available resources where you can guarantee that you're up to date on what's going on in the cyber world. Among them are:

Cyber Security Authority (CSA) — provides comprehensive threat, vulnerability, and exploit notifications. You may subscribe to their email alerts to receive this information as it becomes available.

CERT-GH — This organisation provides thorough information on security alerts, vulnerabilities, and exploits.

SANS Storm Centre —This is where you can learn about emerging dangers. They offer threat feeds as well as a variety of additional tools and information for security professionals.

There are numerous additional helpful tools that you will find very useful as you get more familiar with cybersecurity news.

7 Superior Business Practices

1. Implement a zero-trust approach to IT security. Take note of the word choice. Zero trust is not a viable option. It's a strategy—a philosophy for how to effectively defend the company.

2. Don’t ignore the easy things. Include email protection, access control, secure cloud backup, and multifactor authentication (MFA) on all corporate apps.

3. Invest significant time and resources in educating your employees and customers about cyber threats and how to protect themselves, the company, and its customers. Create a response plan and practice it in a safe area.

4. Use the right people and tools to make sure you have a clear view of all known and possible weaknesses in your company, its customers, and its relationships with third parties.

5. Accept that the new normal will not always involve a workplace. To stay ahead of the next hack and expand protection beyond the workplace, embrace technology such as endpoint detection and response tools.

6. Pay attention to both preventative and rehabilitation plans. Make sure clients have all they need to recover as quickly as possible and know what to do if something goes wrong. Play this out again using business continuity planning and war room procedures.

7. Do not default to "no" when customers seek to introduce new apps or acquire network access. Instead, take advantage of the chance to better understand what they want to achieve and how you might work to develop an effective solution. This should make all of us more mindful of a possible cyber danger.

Remember that there is no silver bullet or singular solution set for addressing IT security at scale. If there were, more security officials would be working on the beach with an unlimited bucket of drinks.

However, the reality is that we can always do more to protect ourselves, our employees, our customers, and our interconnected ecosystem.

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Author, Edem Glymin is the Head of Cybersecurity Operations at Global Secure Solutions.