Global health organizations from the Centers for Disease Control to the National Institute of Health draw similar conclusions about the value of preventative care: it drastically improves quality of life and increases life expectancy1. The same is true of vehicle maintenance, home repairs, and major appliances. And unless you’re a professional, don’t try to do all the maintenance yourself.
Most people understand the need for and benefits of preventative care and proactive maintenance regarding their bodies, homes, and vital personal assets. When it comes to businesses, the same approach is necessary; however, it is often overlooked. There are some startling statistics in support of this perspective:
These data points merely scratch the surface.
Given the gaps in cyber security, maturity, and maintenance found in many businesses, now is an opportune time to remember that it is not too late to establish a routine of conducting an annual security check-up for your business.
Cyber risk assessments, when conducted regularly and proactively, can go a long way in defending your business operations and the critical data it utilizes and must safeguard.
What are cyber risk assessments?
While there are numerous cyber risk and vulnerability assessments that test and validate distinct aspects of a business’ cyber environment (internal penetration tests, for example, simulate attacks originating from inside a network while external penetration tests attempt to exploit an environment for the public internet), they all share some key components:
Because there are numerous ways in which threat actors perpetrate their attacks, risk assessments are often designed to address specific instances: to combat phishing and social engineering attacks, for example, the best assessment type might be Security Awareness Training to sharpen the ability of personnel to recognize and avoid phishing schemes; to assess the efficacy of current security controls and architecture, a cybersecurity Gap Analysis might be the best option; to evaluate the maturity of an organization’s breach response processes, the best risk assessment would be a Tabletop Exercise.
Once baselines are established regarding the various aspects of an organization’s cyber maturity, targeted assessments can be conducted to help ensure incremental improvements are continuously achieved.
Why are annualized cyber risk assessments necessary?
The average global cost of a data breach is at an all-time high of $4.88 million dollars (for US businesses, the cost is more than double), according to IBM’s Cost of a Data Breach Report 20245. This average cost includes operational downtime, recovery costs, ransom payments, legal fees, and other expenditures that, depending on the (scope) of the incident, can increase or decrease in a significant way.
And while there is no fail-safe solution that will guarantee protection against a devastating cyberattack, including the performance of thorough, annual cyber assessments, there are ways to limit (overall) damages.
Let’s assume that a business of 500 employees wants to establish an annual risk assessment routine. They determine a reasonable budget to be $100,0006, 7.
In addition to potential cost savings, annualized cyber assessments can provide numerous benefits to your business:
An organizational data breach can have lasting opportunity costs that are difficult to measure in financial terms: How much is your reputation worth? How do you go about regaining trust following a breach? When your business is experiencing downtime, how do your competitors react to and capitalize on your misfortune?
If we’re honest, these are not risks worth taking.
Strengthening Cyber Resilience
In times of panic (let’s say during an active security breach), people tend to make ill-informed and short-sighted decisions. It is possible to limit these risky decisions with annual tabletop exercises in the development of a comprehensive IR plan. Once this IR plan is in place and practiced annually, organizations can continue building an ongoing security posture that can reduce the likelihood of needing to implement the plan by layering various assessments, applying what is learned to internal policies and training.
Over time your business will grow in terms of cyber resilience if annual risk and vulnerability assessment become a core component of overall strategy and security: personnel will increasingly outsmart phishing attempts, multi-factor authentication will become an acceptable and understood routine, and active monitoring on a 24/7 basis from a Security Operations Center will become as basic an expenditure as electricity so you can focus on fulfilling the Mission and Vision of your organization.
Like vehicle maintenance, regular oil changes offer a much greater value than having to replace the entire engine. Engage your organization in comprehensive risk assessments to safeguard assets, protect customers, and solidify a foundation for prolonged growth.
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