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1. Employee training is critical. Gartner finds that only one third of enterprises will spend
resources on training which include social engineering and awareness. If employees are
properly educated to spot potential attacks and social engineering techniques, they can become
an organizations’ first line of defense. Companies like PhishMe offer interesting solutions in this
area.

2. Patching vulnerabilities and updating systems can go a long way to combat prevalent attacks.
The Cisco 2015 Annual Security Report finds that attackers are targeting the most common
vulnerabilities first and using them to penetrate corporate networks. Prioritizing and patching
those top vulnerabilities quickly should be standard operating procedure for every IT Security
department.

3. Blocking social media sites or prohibiting certain kinds of activities from the workplace, like
posting, while not popular with employees is also an option.

4. Realistically, education, patching and blocking can’t prevent every attack. It is also worth
investing in security tools that enable continuous monitoring of endpoint and network activity
and automated threat removal. These measures will make it possible to mitigate attacks that
circumvent perimeter defenses and prevent major damage to the business.

Attackers continue to change their methods of attack. Security professionals need to be just as
proactive, using a combination of tools and techniques to combat the latest round of threats
swiftly and effectively.

About the Author

Todd Weller, VP, Corporate Development, joined Hexis Cyber Solutions in March 2014. His
responsibilities include analyst relations, competitive and market intelligence, corporate visibility,
M&A, and strategic partnership development. Todd draws on his 17+ years of experience as an
equity research analyst where he covered the security industry for much of that time. In his
equity research career Todd provided research coverage of over 60 companies across several
technology sectors, including security, infrastructure software, data center/cloud hosting, and
healthcare IT.

Connect with Hexis online: http://www.hexiscyber.com/

Hexis Blog: http://www.hexiscyber.com/blog

Twitter: @hexis_cyber

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/hexis-cyber-solutions

55 Cyber Warnings E-Magazine – May 2015 Edition
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