Peter Furst, Head of Incident Response at Emergence one of the premier Cyber insurers in Australia, advises that based on his experience in responding to hundreds of Cyber incidents at Emergence over the past 5 years there are key actions every organisation should take to reduce cyber risk and strengthen their security posture:
Easy low-cost security measures that significantly reduce risk:
- Enforce MFA and Conditional Access (e.g. geoblocking) to prevent unauthorised access.
- Patch systems promptly to close known vulnerabilities.
- Maintain and regularly test offline backups to ensure recovery readiness.
- Apply the principle of least privilege—grant access only as needed.
- Enable and retain broad logging (e.g. system logs, firewall logs, Microsoft 365 audit logs) for visibility and incident investigation.
High-impact security investments:
- Train staff to recognise phishing and fraud attempts.
- Deploy Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) tools like CrowdStrike or SentinelOne.
- Implement a SIEM to centralise and analyse logs.
- Ensure 24/7 monitoring through a Security Operations Centre (SOC).
- Conduct regular penetration testing to identify vulnerabilities.
- Run incident response exercises to test and improve readiness.
Taking these measures not only makes your business more resilient but can be a trigger to obtaining a more economical Cyber insurance premium. Businesses should ensure that all risk mitigation measures taken are communicated to their insurance brokers.
