A market maker works on the trading floor at IG Index in London, Britain January 14, 2016. REUTERS/Stefan Wermuth Earlier this month, credit reporting company Equifax disclosed that hackers had accessed the names and social security numbers of approximately 143 million of its US customers.

The breach tarnished Equifax's reputation, destroyed its stock and decimated its executive ranks.

No one wants to be the next Equifax and it's a safe bet that at this very moment big and small businesses across the country are scrambling to bolster their cyber fortifications.

It's not an easy feat. But Steve Martino, chief information security officer at Cisco, has developed some clever techniques through years of fighting the bad guys.

Cisco employees are constantly kept on their toes as Martino probes them for weak spots and drills a defensive mindset into them.

Martino sat down with Business Insider to share some of his key tactics for creating an organization that won't become the victim of the next big cyber attack. Here's what he recommends: