Protect Your Business With a Cybersecurity Assessment

You may think your network is secure but is it really?

Cybersecurity is critical to keeping business healthy and safe. Chances are, a significant portion of your business makes use of some online technology, from responding to emails and researching potential clients to working with colleagues and sharing important business data in the cloud. You have likely already done the work to secure your business and deployed the appropriate antivirus software and other security measures. But when was the last time you ordered up a comprehensive cybersecurity assessment?

A crucial time to conduct a cybersecurity assessment is before making any major change to your network setup. Some businesses assume that because they have never (knowingly) experienced a data breach, they are doing everything right and don’t need an assessment. Because healthy organizations are constantly growing and evolving, past experiences are not a reliable indicator of current or future risk.

Risk assessments examine all business technologies in use and meant to reveal any possible vulnerabilities. The goal is to provide your business with an itemized plan that addresses all assessed risks. Having this assessment done and creating a plan, you will have the best tools you need to build a stronger, better protected and more resilient business and business network.

Conducting an Asset Inventory

As your business scales up, so to will your network. When network expansion occurs, it is more important than ever to keep track of all of your IT assets. That is why conducting an inventory of IT assets is usually the first step in any cybersecurity assessment.

Asset inventories include looking at all devices capable of handling and securing data. This includes local hardware items such as desktop computers, mobile devices, servers, and firewalls. Be sure not to overlook external assets as well. These would include such things as off-site servers and cloud providers.

Depending on the scope of your assessment, you may also want to include other assets like employees, office equipment, data, buildings, physical security, and more.

Evaluating the Threats

The second portion of a cybersecurity assessment is an evaluation of your business and network systems for any current and potential security threats:

• Business activities and assets — Your business operation can reveal specific threats. One example would be a large amount of staff travel possibly creating additional risk for data loss due to unsecured devices.
• Industry-specific risks — Your network or business data may be vulnerable to specific threats because of the type of business you are in. For instance, if your focus is on government-regulated projects or health-related data that rely on large network systems, there may be points within your operation that are particularly vulnerable to cyberattacks.
• Natural threats — Where your business is located matters. The location and size of your facilities may determine the frequency or types of natural threats (floods, fires, tornados, etc.) that could impact your business negatively.
• Digital crime — Industry reports and news on cybercrime coming from in a specific region or customer base may help determine the type of scams and hacks that may put your network at risk and harm sensitive business data.

Checking Your System For Vulnerabilities

Where are the weak spots in your business or system? Any system vulnerabilities could end up becoming exploited or compromised by others. Have a penetration test conducted in which a series of breach attempts test your network for vulnerabilities. There are different penetration testing techniques depending on your business’s own specific goals and structure. Simulated attacks narrow down where system vulnerabilities may lie, how long it might take to break into a system and what assets are exposed. A good penetration test can also calculate how long it takes for a system to recover following an attack.

In addition to penetration testing, you should examine related network assets for vulnerabilities. Internal factors, such as current or former employees, operating systems, patches, and firmware may all be relevant.

Addressing Regulatory Compliance Requirements

Some industries such as healthcare and finances have specific regulations and compliance obligations that they must meet. Failing to address these requirements adequately can result in serious legal repercussions and financial penalties. While not usually included in most cybersecurity assessments, the state of your compliance may come up when looking at system vulnerabilities. Remember to make sure regulatory compliance is a consideration if your business requires them.

Consider, if you are a healthcare organization that fails to use HIPAA-compliant data handling procedures and policies to protect customer records and communications, this security vulnerability would result in a compliance violation that could end up with your business being heavily fined or even shut down.

Should your business be subject to a lot of industry regulations or compliance laws, include a compliance audit with your security assessment. A compliance audit will do a comprehensive survey of your operation to ensure that you are not missing anything vital.

Time To Take Action

At the conclusion of your cybersecurity assessment, you should receive a complete report. This will summarize and break down the assessment results of your operation, including your reviewed assets, likely threats, current system vulnerabilities, and how you stand with regulation and compliance requirements. Your final report should also address any discovered weaknesses, and produce a plan for your prioritized goals.

Mind you, conducting a cybersecurity assessment is not just a lone task you check off your to-do list. Once completed, you will have to make us of the expert guidance and specific recommendations regarding adjustments to your network, policies, and procedures in order to resolve what issues may have come up.

It shouldn’t end there. It will be important to repeat this evaluation regularly to make sure your business keeps ahead of ever-evolving threats or newly-exposed vulnerabilities to your overall system. Conducting an initial assessment provides you with a good idea of what could make your business vulnerable. You should consider this first assessment as a jumping-off point for creating a plan for responding to incidents and to continue monitoring your situation.

You may wish to hire experienced cybersecurity experts to help you through the process to get the best advice and results.

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