What are the things included in the cyber security readiness checklist? How well are you prepared to defend your business from a cyberattack? Worrying statistics indicate that 43% of cyberattacks target small and medium businesses because they make softer targets. Cybercrime has soared 600% since 2020, presenting an ever-growing threat to companies across all industries.
As cybercrime becomes more lucrative, cyber threats become increasingly elaborate. That leaves businesses to play catch-up, and they pay dearly for it. So, how do you push back against such a dynamic threat?
Conducting a cybersecurity risk assessment can help. By assessing your readiness, you can enact a cybersecurity transformation, enabling your business to deal with cyber threats proactively.
What is the Importance of Cyber Readiness?
Cyber readiness is detecting, responding to, and preventing cybersecurity threats. It culminates various components, including policies and procedures, technical safeguards, incidence response plans, and employee training.
Polished cyber readiness is crucial in any organization for various reasons, including:
It helps you proactively identify and mitigate cybersecurity threats to reduce risk exposure.
It helps protect your business reputation by ensuring you can effectively respond to cybersecurity incidents and minimize their negative impacts.
It helps minimize financial losses associated with a successful data breach, which can cost millions per incident.
What is a Readiness Assessment in Cybersecurity?
A cybersecurity readiness assessment systematically evaluates your company's ability to detect and respond to cyber threats. The process entails using a custom cyber security readiness checklist to assess various aspects of your IT infrastructure, policies, procedures, and practices to identify potential weak points.
During a cybersecurity risk assessment, a cybersecurity expert will review your technical safeguards, employee awareness, incident response preparedness, and risk management practices. The ultimate goal is to understand your current state and identify gaps and areas of improvement to help you secure your IT infrastructure.
What is Included in a Cybersecurity Assessment?
A cybersecurity assessment is a multi-faceted process customized to suit your organization. The specific components of cybersecurity assessment depend on your industry, company size, business goals, and cybersecurity requirements. Your cyber security consultant should address your unique cybersecurity risks and needs.
A Typical Cybersecurity Assessment Will Include:
Vulnerability assessment entails probing your systems, networks, and applications for weaknesses and vulnerabilities. The evaluation helps discover potential entry points that cyber attackers could exploit to gain unauthorized access, disrupt services, or compromise sensitive data. Vulnerability assessments help identify documented vulnerabilities, so you must run them periodically to capture new threats.
Penetration testing: Also known as pen testing, penetration testing simulates real-world cyberattacks by testing the security posture of your systems. It seeks to identify specific vulnerabilities while assessing the efficacy of your security control. During a pen test, a security expert attempts to breach several applications in your IT ecosystem, such as APIs and front/backend servers, to identify areas where you are susceptible to an attack.
Compliance assessment: Companies operating in highly regulated sectors such as health and finance must adhere to specific cybersecurity standards and regulations. A compliance assessment evaluates your adherence to these standards. It helps ensure you've implemented the policies, controls, and processes set by industry standards, regulatory bodies, or contractual agreements.
Security architecture review: A comprehensive assessment of your security architecture and infrastructure. It probes the design, implementation, and efficacy of your security policies, controls, and procedures for potential vulnerabilities and weaknesses. Reviewing the security architecture helps ensure your security measures can adequately protect your systems, data, and networks.
Incidence response evaluation reviews your capacity to detect, respond to, and recover from a cybersecurity breach. A security expert will assess your incident response plans, procedures, and capabilities to ensure you can handle and recover from a security incident quickly and effectively. Timely management of a security breach helps minimize the incident's damage, service disruption, and overall cost.
What is Compliance Readiness Assessment?
A compliance readiness assessment evaluates if your company complies with regulatory and industry-specific cybersecurity requirements. Compliance requirements may vary by geographical location, industry, and the data type your company handles.
During the assessment, a cybersecurity expert evaluates your cybersecurity measures against the relevant regulatory standards. Common cybersecurity regulations include the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), and the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standards (PCI DSS).
Technical assurance in cyber security entails reviewing practices, policies, procedures, and technical controls to ensure they're in sync with specific compliance requirements. A security expert may also interview key compliance personnel and examine evidence of your compliance practices.
Conducting a compliance readiness assessment helps identify gaps and deficiencies in your company's compliance efforts and enables you to work toward full compliance. It helps you proactively address compliance issues, demonstrate a commitment to protecting sensitive data, and lower the risk of non-compliance penalties.
Don't Be Caught Off-Guard! Follow Our Cyber Security Readiness Checklist.
The consequences of failing to comply with industry standards or regulatory requirements can be dire. At Trava, we specialize in helping businesses bolster their cybersecurity measure and seamlessly comply with regulatory requirements.
Are you up to date with the standard and regulatory requirements? Test your compliance maturity today!