Recent cyber-attacks have shown how important it is to have robust cybersecurity practices in place to protect both your business and customer information.
The Australian Cyber Security Centre’s essential 8 strategies provide guidance on how you can create a baseline of protection against cyber incidents.
Their first topic covers application controls.
Application control strategy
Put simply, application control involves you putting together a list of computer apps and/or downloadable programs that are ‘authorised’ as being legitimate and safe to use.
You then add these authorised apps to your computer’s application control feature. These features act as your computer’s security guard, ensuring that you can only download and use the approved list of apps that can be on your computer.
Doing this can minimise the risk of malicious code (also known as malware) being downloaded onto your systems, which can then disrupt, damage or even gain unauthorised access to your computer systems.
It’s important that you regularly review the list of approved apps and remove any you no longer need. It’s also crucial that you test the application control to make sure it works. Simply try and download an app that isn’t on your authorised list and make sure your system blocks the download.