On the first day of Techmas Waterstons gave to me…

Imagine a prison with concrete walls, barbed wire and an electric fence, but an exercise yard full of tunnels leading straight to the nearest beach resort. We see that time and time again.

Well, maybe not that specifically but companies with well secured and locked down perimeters, but very vulnerable internal systems, and it’s only a matter of time before a phishing attack will be successful, or a perimeter vulnerability will appear and with that an attacker/malware will get into your internal IT estate.

While external protection is important, internal security is paramount, including:

• Consistent and holistic patch management to apply the latest security updates across the board, including workstations, servers and network infrastructure
• Holistic coverage of Anti-Malware - especially next generation/EDR
• Effective internal threat detection, and prevention to detect, alert and block internal attacks
• Minimising out of support and/or unpatched systems or network segregating them if they can’t be upgraded or replaced
• Removing local admin from all users to minimise the damage of a successful account compromise and/or malware infection

Attacks are no longer a matter of ‘if’ but ‘when’, so make sure your prison walls, and floors, are secure.

To get in touch with the author of today’s Techmas Tip, email iain.batty@waterstons.com