How do we protect the year-end close from a cyber attack?

Plan it like any critical period: freeze risky changes, check backups, tighten payment controls and make sure someone watches the finance systems. In the weeks before, apply pending updates and then avoid large changes. Test a restore of the accounting and ERP data. Remind the finance team that any change of bank details, even from a known supplier or the CEO, is confirmed by phone on a known number. Restrict remote access to the finance servers to the people who need it. Agree who receives alerts during the close, including evenings. On the network side, NetSenX shows unusual connections to and from the finance servers, such as new sessions from other workstations or large uploads at night, on every plan.

Read next

← All 40 questions on Small business monitoringAll topics