As the recent statement by the president of the United States suggests, Russian bad actors have been launching retaliatory cyber attacks as a way to get back at the US for economic sanctions.

The purpose of these cyber attacks is to impose a cost on U.S. companies and governmental organizations. Cyber attacks can cause a significant amount of damage to the economy and security of a country, this is why CISA(Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency) has published a program named, “Shields Up”.

Why is Shields Up important?

Shields Up aims to provide guidance to businesses and organizations of all sizes based in the US. The guidelines are in-depth and are very useful for businesses that are looking to improve their cybersecurity.
It is very important to reduce risks against potential cyber attacks. Cyber attacks are fast and extremely invasive. Even if an organization is able to successfully defend from the attack, it will still need to dedicate a few days to carry out a thorough inspection just to make sure that all the equipment is safe from any hidden malware.
For small businesses, the costs involved in cleaning up a cyber attack can be massive and devastating, you can learn more by reading this article. This is exactly why it is so important for any organization to reduce their exposure to cyber attacks as much as possible.

Here is a summary of the “Shields Up” guidelines

1. Make sure to implement MFA

Multi Factor Authentication can be a lifesaver, it will easily defend your organization against the most frequent attacks and allows you to focus more on other aspects of your cyber security.
For smaller businesses that cannot afford to have expensive cyber security software, getting MFA can make a very large difference.

2. Keep your software up-to-date

Old software is a liability for any company, as software gets older, its vulnerabilities get exposed and are much more likely to be exploited. It is much better to simply update to a newer version of software than to risk becoming a victim of a cyber attack.
You can check out software vulnerabilities identified by CISA here.

3. Get rid of unnecessary ports and protocols

Shutting down unused and irrelevant ports can allow your cybersecurity team to divert their attention to ports that are much more important.

4. Review the services that are being used by your organization

Cloud services have seen very impressive growth in recent years. There has been a significant increase in the reliance of businesses on cloud services for different aspects of their operations.

This is why it is very important to have your cyber security team review all the cloud-based services that are being used by your company.

You can check out CISA’s guidelines on which factors your team will need to focus on. In addition to that, you can also use CISA’s cyber hygiene services to get an understanding of the cyber security position of your business.

Fast response in case of an attack

If an attack does occur, it is vital that you take action immediately. In order to improve your reaction time, your team will need to be able to detect an attack very quickly.
Here are some steps you can take to help in reducing your reaction time.

1. Log your activities

Logging your activities can allow your cyber security team to have a very good overview of the general behavior of your daily cyber traffic.
If your cyber security team notices some unusual activity on the logs, then they can quickly start to investigate the matter, thereby reducing your reaction time significantly.

2. Take extra care to monitor risky traffic

Traffic from countries that are more at risk of a cyber attack should be monitored more carefully.
Ideally, you should isolate traffic from such sources, this will reduce the risk of an attack spreading to your entire system and it will also make it easier for your team to detect the source of an attack.

3. Have a response plan

It only makes sense to be prepared for the worst-case scenario. All it takes is one successful attack out of thousands to cripple your system, and due to the high amount of cyber attacks that take place daily, having a response plan is a very important aspect of a good cybersecurity policy.

For a good response plan, it is vital that you designate a crisis-response team to deal with an emergency. This team should have clear roles and responsibilities to deal with the different aspects of a cyber attack.

4. Keep backups for critical data

Data is the first thing to be compromised in the majority of cyber attacks. Having backups for all your sensitive data is very important.

In addition to having backups, you should ensure that the ability to restore the data from these backups is also improved upon. The backups should also be kept separate from the main systems of your organization and they should be able to work even without your organization’s network.

You can check out the full Shields Up guidelines here.