Without wanting to state the obvious, nobody likes it when they’re ill. The feeling of an oncoming cold is enough to send a substantial amount of dread through the strongest of minds. It’s like how we – or most of us – know not to do certain things that will hurt us physically or mentally because it’s baked into our subconscious. We can’t help but look both ways before we cross the road, wash our hands when we’re in hospitals, avoid eating mouldy or smelly foods, brush our teeth and so on and so forth. It’s almost second nature to do these things as it’s imperative in order to reduce our chances of getting sick. After all, prevention is better than the cure.

It goes without saying that a systems security follows the exact same rule of thumb. Governance is king and you need to have the proper processes, policies and devices patched regularly in order to prevent any issues from arising. Like our health, information security should be baked into the mind-sets of company culture and not left as an afterthought. It’s unreasonable to expect your employees to know everything there is to know about cybersecurity, however, employees are often a weak point in a systems defences, therefore educating them on best practices is critical.

Anyone that’s ever been south of the Equator will know a lot of the measures taken before setting off. You check with your doctor or a medical professional prior to leaving and get a consultation, be it an injection or advice on what to expect and be careful of whilst there. Nobody just think’s everything will be OK and that the mosquitos won’t be a problem, because we know that exposing ourselves to that sort of risk can have potentially catastrophic repercussions.

It’s only normal to research and educate yourself before leaving for somewhere that has potentially harmful dangers to our health, yet, a lot of people aren’t aware of the hazards that exposing your network can have. Every time you deploy a new software, hardware or even hire a new employee, you need to check that it/they will stand up to the same rigorous standards your organisation expects.

It’s the security professionals job to minimise risk and damage caused by a cyberattack. Humans are inherently likely to make a mistake, it’s next to impossible to prevent human error, which places more emphasis on having a strong infrastructure in place. Having an infrastructure set up to identify, react and minimise the damage of a breach is paramount to keeping an organisation running.

In this day and age there isn’t a week that passes where we don’t read or hear about a cyberattack on an organisation or system. It’s why companies like Microsoft are being trusted to make a difference, like risual’s security consultants, who’re helping businesses to understand the security way of life. A healthy body requires a healthy lifestyle, just like how IT security requires a security mind-set.

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