It’s time to put a cybersecurity risk management strategy in place.

Around the world, cyber threats—including ransomware, phishing, and denial-of-service attacks—are increasing almost exponentially. Ransomware is particularly troublesome; according to Chainalysis, the total amount of ransom paid by cyber attack victims in 2020 was more than $406 million dollars. That’s a 337% increase from 2019.

Because cyber threats are constantly evolving, all companies are at risk for a cyber attack. That means small businesses are just as vulnerable as large companies. Cyber criminals sometimes target small and medium-sized businesses because they don’t have the infrastructure or the resources to thoroughly protect their data. But that’s just one reason. As we mentioned in 10 Things Every SaaS Business Leader Should Do to Protect Their Data: Part 1, cyber criminals might prefer to go after the little guy as a way to access a bigger company. (Small businesses often have vendor relationships with larger ones, for example, and must share data.)

To protect your business, create a cybersecurity risk management strategy. Cybersecurity management helps you identify risks and evaluate resiliency—and lays out a framework for how to respond in case of an attack.

What is cybersecurity management, exactly?

Before we explain why cybersecurity management for small and medium-sized businesses is so important, we want to ask you something: Have you had a customer or prospect ask you to complete a security questionnaire or comply with the SOC2 or ISO 27001 framework? Were you able to meet their request?

As a SaaS company, your customers expect you to secure their data—and you can with a cybersecurity management plan. Proper cybersecurity management includes cybersecurity risk assessment and other cybersecurity assessment tools to ensure the safety of a network. By conducting regular assessments and continuously monitoring for new threats, you can decrease your risk of an attack. This also gives you the opportunity to identify potential risks and create a plan for how to respond to each one. Do you treat it? Do you share the risk by outsourcing it to another source or taking out insurance?

Keep in mind that no two cybersecurity risk management plans are the same—there is no “one size fits all” policy. If you are a large SaaS company, your cybersecurity assessment tools and vulnerabilities may be different from that of a small start-up.

How cybersecurity risk management benefits SaaS companies

SaaS applications, also known as on-demand software, web-based software, or hosted software, carry a large amount of sensitive information. Since multiple users can access the information across a variety of devices, there is a privacy risk. That’s why it’s imperative for leaders and managers at SaaS companies to understand where to focus their security efforts. If you don’t invest in a cybersecurity risk assessment and/or cybersecurity management plan, you risk losing potential customers.

Enterprise customers expect you to protect their data from cyber threats, so you must put your company in a position to compete for and win bigger contracts. Look for a partner like Trava that has experience with high-growth SaaS companies to identify vulnerabilities, implement programs to reduce risk, and insure against financial loss due to cyber incidents.

How SaaS company Encamp landed its first enterprise customer with Trava’s help

Encamp is a first-of-its kind SaaS company for environmental, health, and safety compliance data management. While Encamp was bidding to land their first enterprise customer contract, the potential customer requested a cyber risk analysis of Encamp’s digital environment. The problem—Encamp didn’t have a formal cybersecurity risk management program in place. Plus, they didn’t have the time and resources to develop one on their own.

Trava helped Encamp uncover some key risk management gaps and create a detailed cyber risk report and prioritized action plan. We helped Encamp implement their new program, and as a result, they landed their first enterprise customer. (You can read the full case study here.)

Remember—businesses of all sizes need to protect their systems from potential attacks because your customers are depending on you to do so. Hackers are fast, but a proper cybersecurity risk assessment and management plan will help you catch them in the act.