Our interconnected world provides innovation, revenue and productivity opportunities that weren’t conceivable even a short time ago. While powerful and complex network effects have grown from connections between apps and infrastructure, tech-savvy criminal organizations have emerged to exploit those connections and everything connected to them.  

Protecting businesses from these bad actors is often described as “enterprise security.” But what, exactly, is enterprise security and how can it help your business? Let’s break it down.

Why is cybersecurity so important for enterprises?

Cyberthreats such as ransomware attacks, data breaches and IT disruptions are the No. 1 worry for companies globally in 2024, according to the Allianz Risk Barometer, which pinpoints top global business risks, based on the insights of more than 3,000 risk management professionals.

The reasons for alarm are justified. According to the report, cybercriminals are using new technologies such as generative artificial intelligence (AI) to automate and accelerate attacks while businesses are facing poor cybersecurity and a shortage of cybersecurity professionals.

While companies of all sizes are concerned, enterprises are high-value targets with arguably the most to lose in terms of revenue, trade secrets, market reputation and customer trust.

Indeed, the global average cost of a data breach reached $4.88 million in 2024, according to IBM’s Cost of a Data Breach Report. And, it’s rising, IBM’s study says costs increased 10 percent from the prior year, the largest yearly jump since the pandemic, as 70 percent of affected firms reported significant or very significant disruption after the incident.

Against this backdrop, it’s not surprising that the Allianz risk report finds risk awareness among larger organizations has grown since the pandemic and they’ve signaled their intentions to upgrade cybersecurity resilience.

Common Enterprise Cyberattacks and Data Breaches

Cyberattacks target infrastructure, data and, increasingly, humans.Common forms include:

• Malware and Ransomware — The term “malware” (malicious software) encompasses any software designed to harm computer systems, networks, or users. Ransomware is a well-publicized and much-feared form of malware that encrypts a victim’s files and demands payment (often in cryptocurrency) for the decryption key. Ransomware attacks sometimes involve “double extortion” tactics that both lock up data and threaten to release it publicly.
• Phishing Campaigns — Phishing campaigns seek to steal user credentials or deploy malware by impersonating trusted people, organizations or applications. Subsets of phishing include spear-phishing,  which targets specific individuals; whaling, which targets key members of an organization; vishing, which uses voice for phishing; and smishing, which uses SMS, or text messaging, for phishing. Phishing remains the most common form of email attack today, with criminal organizations leveraging artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance both deception and interactions with intended victims.
• Denial-of-Service (DoS) and Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Attacks — Denial-of-Service attacks disrupt or disable servers, networks, online services or websites by flooding them with illegitimate requests and/or traffic. “Distributed Denial-of-Service” (DDoS) attacks use networks of compromised computers or devices (sometimes called “botnets”) for the same purposes.
• Advanced Persistent Threats (APTs) — Advanced Persistent Threats (APTs) are long-term, multivector attacks for the purposes of espionage, disruption and sabotage (e.g., stealing intellectual property or harming critical infrastructure). They’re usually conducted by nation-states or well-heeled organizations with the resources to develop and deploy custom malware designed to evade detection for extended periods.
• Insider Threats — Insider threats come from people with legitimate access to systems and data (think: employees, contractors, or business partners). Insider threats can be malicious (from individuals who intend to cause harm) or result from negligence due to sloppy, inadequate or unfollowed security procedures.
• Other Threats — You’ve likely heard of many other forms of attack – zero-day exploits, supply-chain attacks, brute force, credentials stuffing, etc. Some are subsets of the categories discussed above and some are standalone, but they’re often used in tandem to compromise enterprise security.

Enterprise Cybersecurity Architecture Best Practices

For all the complexities of cyberattacks, the best defense for enterprises comes down to three key variables:

• Principles that underpin effective cybersecurity strategies and tactics across the enterprise
• Solutions that effectively address known and unknown (emerging) threats
• Partnership with a provider that can provide planning, tools and expertise in the right configurations for your enterprise

Core Principles of Enterprise Cybersecurity

Principles that can help your enterprise stand up to today’s threat environment include:

• Defense in Depth — Defense in Depth strategies deploy multiple layers of security controls to protect against various attack vectors,
• Least Privilege — Least privilegepolicies provide users with the minimum level of access necessary to fulfill their duties.
• Zero Trust — Zero Trust policies assumeno user should be granted access to resources until their identity has been verified.
• Continuous Monitoring — Continuous monitoring requires observing networks, endpoints and user activity for anomalies, and investigating them.Business
• Continuity and Disaster Recovery (BC/DR) Planning — BCDR planning helps your company prepare for attacks in advance by assessing the likely impact of a breach or outage. It usually involves establishing recovery time and point objectives (RTOs and RPOs) and determining redundancy, replication and backup strategies as well as crisis communications plans and routines for testing recovery systems and processes.
• Security Awareness — Enterprise security also involves training a cyberaware workforce to minimize human error and vulnerabilities.

Subsets of these categories – often developed with help and cybersecurity advice from a trusted advisor – address the full spectrum of security across infrastructure, apps, assets and people.

Key Solutions for Enterprise Cybersecurity

The most effective enterprise cybersecurity solutions offer layered protection across network and user assets while also developing resilience in the face of a successful breach or other attack. Key areas include:

• Network Security — Network security protects the integrity, confidentiality and accessibility of computer networks and data through defensive layers such as firewalls, network segmentation, encryption, network access control, monitoring and analysis, and more.
• Endpoint Security — Endpoint security provides protection where and when devices connect to your network— laptops, smartphones, tablets, servers, IoT devices, etc.
• Cloud Security — Cloud security protects cloud-based infrastructure, applications, data and users.
• Data Backup and Disaster Recovery —Data backup and disaster recovery  systems protect data by creating secure backups and ensuring rapid restoration of critical operations in the event of an attack.

Another aspect of enterprise security is assessing which security functions are best managed in-house and which should be outsourced to a partner such as a managed services provider (MSP).

Enterprise Cybersecurity with UPSTACK

When you’re ready to protect your business with enterprise security, UPSTACK can help. Connect with an advisor today.