Understanding Your Cyber Risk
Cybersecurity is an ever-changing landscape that needs constant vigilance—when was the last time you evaluated your business’s cybersecurity technology, processes, and strategies?
If it’s been a while, you’re not alone. Many businesses overlook regular reviews of their cybersecurity measures for more pressing matters, often until it’s too late.
You don’t want to wait for an incident to occur before evaluating your organization’s cybersecurity. A cybersecurity risk assessment can help you gauge your current cybersecurity posture, uncover vulnerabilities, and create a future strategy to help keep your business safe.
In this blog, we’ll explain the benefits of an expert-led cybersecurity risk assessment, what you should look for in a well-planned cybersecurity risk assessment, and how we can help keep your business safe.
Things Have Changed, Have You?
When it comes to cybersecurity, you might feel a little overwhelmed. You’re not imagining it. Whether it’s a report of a catastrophic nationwide security-related outage, a new must-have security technology, or a dangerous vulnerability that requires immediate patching, there’s something new every day.
The problem is that you probably don’t have time to update your cybersecurity every day. It’s rare that businesses deliberately make time to address cybersecurity annually, especially after implementing an initial strategy.
If it’s been over a year since you last evaluated your organization’s cybersecurity, it’s time—what was once considered robust may no longer be sufficient against today’s emerging, evolving risks. Traditional defenses like strong firewalls and anti-virus protection are essential to your cybersecurity strategy, but they’re no longer enough on their own.
For example, consider the infamous Equifax data breach. In 2017, Equifax, one of the largest credit reporting agencies, suffered a massive data breach that exposed the personal information of 147 million people. This breach was due to a vulnerability in a web application, which could have been identified and patched with a thorough cybersecurity risk assessment.
While your company may not be the same size or handle the same level of personal data as Equifax, you could quickly become the next headline. When was the last time you evaluated your cybersecurity posture?
4 Key Benefits of a Cybersecurity Risk Assessment
The volume and complexity of cyberattacks have skyrocketed in recent years, costing businesses, on average, $4.4 million, according to IBM. If any single aspect of your business is connected to the internet, you’re at risk of a cyberattack.
If the financial repercussions and your business’s hard-earned reputation aren’t motivation enough, here are four more reasons why you should consider scheduling a cybersecurity risk assessment for your business.
1. Operational and Cyber Resiliency
Like hiring your own private investigator, a risk assessment helps you identify vulnerabilities and address them, ensuring your business and its employees are best positioned to handle all types of cyberthreats. In the unfortunate event that you do experience a cyberattack, resiliency is equally crucial in maintaining business continuity and protecting your organization’s reputation.
2. Compliance and Protection
With cyberattacks becoming more prevalent and more costly, regulatory requirements regarding data protection are becoming more and more rigorous. Depending on your industry, having a cybersecurity strategy might even be mandatory.
A thorough cybersecurity risk assessment from an experienced technology provider can help ensure that your business meets requirements, protects sensitive data, and avoids costly fines and legal fees.
3. Cyber Insurance Eligibility
Considering investing in cyber insurance as a safety net? Here’s the inside scoop–many cyber insurance providers require an existing level of cybersecurity, including a risk assessment, as a prerequisite for coverage. A comprehensive evaluation before you begin shopping for a cyber insurance provider demonstrates your commitment to cybersecurity and can help make your business eligible for better insurance terms.
4. Proactive Management
Cybersecurity risk assessments enable your business’s proactive management of potential threats. Cybercriminals don’t discriminate against where they steal data from. Any-sized organization in any industry can have a bounty on its head.
It’s no longer an unlikely scenario—when you unfortunately experience a cyber incident, it’s vital that you have all the pieces in place to minimize the effects of the attack and avoid downtime. By understanding and mitigating risks before they become issues, you can hopefully prevent many of the high costs and disruptions typically associated with cyberattacks.
What’s Included in a Cybersecurity Risk Assessment?
Cybersecurity risk assessments are unique to the companies providing them. Like most services, some are better than others. A comprehensive, expert-structured cybersecurity risk assessment should include several critical components designed to identify, assess, and prioritize risks to your information and systems.
- Vulnerability Assessment. Understanding your business’s existing weaknesses is an essential entry point of a cybersecurity risk assessment. You should go into your evaluation expecting to be awed by what the assessor uncovers. A comprehensive, well-informed assessment will inspect all aspects of your IT ecosystem, including your network, data, SaaS applications, and other areas you might not realize are at risk.
- Comprehensive Research. The active discovery phase is an essential component of a cybersecurity risk assessment that includes searching for compromised passwords, reviewing dark web data, and evaluating your current cybersecurity policies. This research process helps your assessor identify if any of your sensitive data is already at risk.
- Real-Time Testing. Even if you have the most sophisticated cybersecurity technology available on the planet, one wrong click by an employee can compromise your entire system. Humans initiate most cyberattacks, and phishing is one of the most common methods cybercriminals use to breach security. Phishing tests can help determine your current level of employee risk and the need for ongoing security awareness training.
- Mitigate and Protect. At the end of your cybersecurity risk assessment, you should have an expert-guided plan to help mitigate your risk and keep your business safe. After all, what’s the point of conducting a cybersecurity risk assessment if you’re not going to take action? Your plan should include recommending specific actions to strengthen known deficiencies in your defenses, such as updating software, developing policies, or implementing new security technologies.
We Help Keep Your Business Safe.
Things have changed. Cybersecurity isn’t an optional add-on or luxury item; it’s a necessity. Cyberthreats are growing steadily in number and sophistication, making it more critical than ever to ensure your business is protected.
The first step to securing your business for long-term success is a cybersecurity risk assessment.
As a comprehensive technology partner, we specialize in secure technology services for our clients, providing comprehensive managed services solutions from assessment to implementation, ongoing management, and strategic improvement. Contact us to learn more about how we can help protect your business.