Your company is at risk from cybercriminals, regardless of whether you are aware of that or don’t. It’s a fact of our times. However, how much chance do you have and what can be done to limit these risks?
Tools for assessing cybersecurity risks help businesses to understand, manage and reduce any cyber-related risk. They are essential components of a risk-management strategy and protect data. As businesses rely more on connected systems for doing business, the risks increase and exposes your company to new threats.
These are five most effective strategies and tools we suggest all businesses adopt to reduce your cybersecurity risk.
1. NIST Framework
The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Cybersecurity Framework (CSF) is a method where defenders continuously monitor, analyze and respond to threats and intelligently deal with threats, while ensuring that data is secure using well-established best practices. It was developed after forward-thinking individuals working in both business and government joined forces in order to address issues relating to the protection of vital infrastructure.
The NIST Cybersecurity Framework provides a set of guidelines to help companies better manage and minimize the risk of cybersecurity. Furthermore it encourages organizations to improve their communication with customers and partners. NIST Framework pushes to improve cybersecurity risk management communications between stakeholders both internal and external.
The framework is broken down into five functional areas each one of which is related to various areas of the management of risks.
- Identify
- Detect
- Protect
- Respond
- Recover
It’s an proactiveview which we are a believer in and have adapted to our method of cybersecurity at the highest level. The depth of information can help organizations make sure that they’re properly managing cyber risk , while increasing their ability to recognize dangers.
2. Network Security Assessment
A security assessment for your network is essentially something like an review. It’s a thorough review of your security measures for your network, designed to detect weaknesses within your network. What Elevity is doing in this moment is, for instance, reviewing each device in the network to identify holes within security of the IT infrastructure, analyzing for vulnerable information through the Dark Web, and eliminate threats from file, email, browsers and more.
There are two types of assessments for security on networks one being one is a vulnerability test that reveals to organizations what their weaknesses are and the testing for penetration that simulates the actual threat. The goal of a network security test is to identify possible entry points for expensive cyberattacks and attacks from both within and outside your business. It’s also a method to run through potential attacks scenarios.
These tests will assess the efficacy of your security measures and offer answers to some of the most crucial questions. What happens when certain systems are compromised? What information is compromised? How many records are most likely to be affected? What needs to be done to deter the risk of attack? A security assessment is an opportunity to practice run.
3. Automated Questionnaires
One of the most important components for cyber risk assessment are the questionnaires you employ to assess the risk of third parties. Making and sending questionnaires is an intensive task and proving the responses is challenging. Utilizing an automated questionnaire platform can help with these issues through the creation of specific questionnaires for vendors that can be distributed and monitored at a the scale of. This helps create the illusion of transparency between you and your vendors as they can keep track of the responses of your vendors to questions in real time, thereby simplifying the management of questionnaires.
4. Staff Assessments
While remote working is continuing, employees might make use of their personal devices at work, share their devices with employees who are not employees, utilize unsecure Wi-Fi networks, or be victim to fraudulent emails. Your system of information could be at risk due to inadequate document retention, the usage of unencrypted USB flash drives, or the use of unsecure channels to transfer critical information. In the end, security measures could not be present, making your network susceptible to cyberattacks.
testing an employee’s cybersecurity awareness and response is crucial regardless of whether they’re in the office or at a remote. This can be done with the phishing simulator that lets you set up emails that appear to come from the manager, the IT team, or even colleagues in the hope of convincing employees to click the link, provide credentials, or download an attachment. The information you receive could be used to instruct employees on the best practices in cybersecurity and strategies to prevent cyberattacks.
If you feel the security of your network isn’t there due to remote work we recommend you install Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) — particularly via Microsoft Azure.
5. Third-Party Risk Assessment
Unfortunately hackers are attacking third-party vendors in the hope of launching attempts to breach data. If your business is able to conduct a vulnerability audit and inventory, we recommend taking stock and analysing your current security procedures to discover weaknesses in the security of your IT infrastructure.
Utilizing this report to assess the performance of vendors, which can help to strengthen your business relationships with third parties as well as help to stop your use of services, technology or partnerships that could expose your business up to hacks.
How Would You Rate Your Risk?
As threats to cyber security are growing in complexity, access to tools for risk assessment is a must. At Elevity, we consider cybersecurity seriously and utilize our own four-step approach to cybersecurity which is Security, Strategy Solutions, Support and Strategy. As a backbone we’ve created a second tool that you can access today.
We encourage you to complete the FREE cybersecurity risk analysis by clicking here. Answer a few questions to determine your risk score, and then learn the best next steps to follow to boost your security.
