How to Create an Effective Cybersecurity Policy?

January 1, 2021

Ever since hacking, money theft, documents theft, and other related things have become the source of many damages, it has become important to take care of cybersecurity. Companies, big or small, are starting to create cybersecurity policies to make sure they are protected and safe from cyber-attacks. But when creating these cybersecurity policies, it is important to keep a few things in the notice.

When you are making cybersecurity policies, you need to know that those policies should outline the following things:

Your business’s assets that you need to protect
Any threats to the assets of your company
Measures to protect these all things and the business.

When you have several employees working for you, it is very important to make cybersecurity policies that would make them work on the rules to make sure your business is saved. It means to make them know their role in the company.

When you are making the policies, make sure the employees understand the following things:

The type of information that they can share with others.
The acceptable use of online materials and devices.
Storage and handling sensitive material.

Tips to Make an Effective Cybersecurity Policy

Here are some of the tips that can help you make the perfect cybersecurity policy where employees can get the idea of what their role is and the company is also protected. Here are some of the tips that can help you:

The Email Security

You must include the section where you tell them about the guidelines about the email security measures. You can include pointers like:

They should block junk, spam, and scam emails
They should be deleting and reporting the emails that look suspicious.
They should not share their email address unless it seems necessary.
Do not open the attachments with the email without scanning.

Rules About Technology

Technology has made things easier and simpler yet it can become the cause of many issues. Sometimes, employees don’t care about how they are handling their mobile phones and laptops at work. So, you can include the following things:

Advice about how to store their devices in the office when they are not using them.
Where they can access the business digital devices when they are away from the office.
How they can report a theft if they witness it.
When should they shut down the laptops and devices when there is no use.
They must lock their screens when they are off their desk
They shouldn’t use removable external devices because of the threat of any malware.

We all know how addicted is social media. And, we can see several people responding to their posts, comments, and being active on social media even during the working hours. Though no management wants to intervene in the personal space, when it is affecting the performance, it is the necessary thing to add to the cybersecurity policy. You can add the following things:

They must know which information about the workplace they can share over social media with others and which information is strictly confidential.
Which platforms should they sign in with their work email account? There should be some limitations regarding the websites they can register with the work email account.
Guidelines about which social media platform or websites should they be using when they are in the office.

Social media is becoming a very common cause of the unproductive behavior of the employees. They are neglecting work to be on social media and thus it is required to guide them beforehand about the stuff that won’t be tolerated.

Preparing for An Incident

You can tell them all about how should they behave as an employee and how should they take care of the information of the office but do you train them well for the surprise events? What if a theft happens? What if there is big damage to the company? In that case, you must tell the following things:

They should know how to respond to any cyber-attack effective immediately.
They should know what actions to take when something like this happens.
They should know their responsibilities in such disasters.

Handling Sensitive Data

Several employees are exposed to the sensitive information of the company. And, it is a part of their job to protect that data. However, adding this to the cybersecurity policy can help a lot in clarifying them what is their role in this. You can add the following pointers:

When and how sensitive data can be shared.
The ways they could use to store the physical files in the storage or locker.
How can they properly identify the confidential and sensitive data?
How can they destroy the sensitive data when it is no longer required?

Keep Your Cybersecurity Policy Up-To-Date

The most important thing is that the employees shouldn’t be signing the policy from 10 years ago. They should see that you have modified the policies with the time and that shows that you are very much serious about these. The more up-to-date the policies are, the better they will be perceived by the employees.

Making the cybersecurity policy is hard work but once done, you can make sure that you have done your part in informing your employees that you have rules and you cannot be deceived. Just keep in mind that your company is your priority when making these policies.

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