An essential stage of improving your overall cyber security strategy is assessing and identifying your organisation’s potential risks and determining your vulnerability. Recent news headlines give us every reason to reconsider current cyber security practices to fall out of the false sense of security.
In fact, cyber-attacks have been ranked the third-likeliest risk right after data fraud and theft. While you may think that your organisation is not at risk, it is useful to know that no one is safe.
Malicious criminals are stepping up their efforts to extract as much value as possible from brand reputations, customer trust and whole economies.
Before assessing your cyber security defences, it’s crucial to understand the risk profile. Research cited on CSO states that the average cost of a cyber-attack climbed from $1.2 million in 2016 to $1.3 million in 2017.
A risk-based cyber security strategy will help your company allocate the right resources and apply the highest level of security. This strategy always starts by identifying which data is critical and how far you can go to prevent it from falling into the wrong hands.
Assess what data is most critical to your business and what is most important to protect and prioritise. Which of your data points is of high value to someone else?
Personal information like bank account numbers, Social Security numbers, or health records is easily monetised in the criminal market. Your organisation’s intellectual property, which defines and distinguishes you from your competitors, can be valuable in other markets.
Who wants your data? Who wants to destroy and disrupt your operations? What are their usual attack methods? Assume what will be worse for them to do. Steal your data? Make it inaccessible? Alter it?
Look at your data from an attacker’s perspective—to what extent will they go to achieve their goal? Consult your IT team about appropriate hardening, scanning, and monitoring critical systems to protect your business against the most likely and harmful attack opportunities.
What level of risk are you willing to accept? It is near impossible to fix every vulnerability and address every risk that your business is exposed to; it is beyond most technical and financial resources.
Measuring detection and response is more effective if the likelihood of business impact is low.
Do not waste money protecting all of your information and systems equally from every threat. By taking the time to understand the realistic risks to your business, you can more effectively work with your IT team to design security into the systems that handle your most valuable data.
In most cases, information and financial assets are most vulnerable as they are most attractive to cyber criminals. The best way to assess the security of these assets is to make sure only those who need them can access them. Assess storage and management by reviewing where the information is stored and how easy/hard it is to access it. Assess all the IT equipment within your business, including mobile and personal IT devices.
The most crucial stage of assessing and improving your overall cyber security strategy is identifying your vulnerable areas and bridging those gaps.