Many businesses are becoming aware of the threat that cyber attacks pose to their operations, reputation, and revenues.
While investing in security controls such as monitoring tools, multifactor authentication, security awareness, and other security best practices has its advantages.
A truly secure company has a solid cyber security strategy in place, as well as a well-defined path to address future security needs.
In this article, we will go over each step of the process in detail.
By the end, you’ll have all the information you need to lay the groundwork for your security strategy, whether you’re a small business or an enterprise.
What Is a Cybersecurity Strategy?
A cybersecurity strategy is a plan of action designed to improve your organization’s security and resilience. It employs a top-down approach to establish a set of goals and protocols to keep you safe.
It defines who is responsible for what and outlines the responsibilities of individuals within your organization. This strategy also addresses what will happen if a security incident occurs and what the best response should be.
Finally, it recognizes that cyber threats are constantly evolving and devises ways to adapt so that your security is always improving. When implemented properly, a cyber security strategy will align with strategic business goals, ensuring that everything works together to make your company more efficient.
Why is it important?
Cyber attacks can have devastating consequences for a business, ranging from financial losses to operational snags, reputational damage, legal and regulatory fallout, and even the risk of the company going out of business entirely. A strong cybersecurity strategy significantly reduces the likelihood that your company will fall victim to a cybercriminal and mitigates the aforementioned consequences if a security incident occurs. A cybersecurity strategy is a proactive approach to dealing with cyber threats, and the lack of one increases the likelihood of your company becoming a victim of a cyber-attack or data breach.
How to Develop a CyberSecurity Strategy?
A cybersecurity strategy significantly reduces the likelihood of cyber-attacks by safeguarding sensitive information, lowering potential costs, and protecting a company’s reputation. As a result, scheduling a cybersecurity review now and planning for the coming year is a good idea.
Let’s take a look at the top tips for developing your cybersecurity strategy.
- Risk Assessment
A cybersecurity risk assessment is intended to provide a detailed picture of potential cyber threats to your business as well as your ability to manage the associated risks. Because the variety of threats varies by business, an in-depth risk assessment is a first and most important step in understanding the gaps and vulnerabilities in your existing policies and procedures. Aside from understanding your risk profile, risk assessments can assist in identifying third and fourth-party risks, which is an important part of the journey toward security.
Aside from understanding overall risk, a security risk assessment can assist businesses in identifying, categorizing, and mapping their data and information assets based on their value. This enables businesses to prioritize and allocate resources accordingly, ensuring the efficiency and effectiveness of implemented cybersecurity measures.
Without a thorough risk assessment in place, your company may fail to identify where the problems are and what aspects of cybersecurity to prioritize and invest in to avoid disruption.
- Evaluate Cybersecurity Maturity
It is also necessary to assess your company’s cybersecurity maturity before conducting an IT risk assessment. Choose a cybersecurity maturity model and apply it to your maturity policy. Start by evaluating the maturity of various categories and subcategories ranging from policies to security technologies.
Then, using the same model, forecast where you see your company in the next 5-10 years. Consider whether or not distributed denial-of-service or ransomware will pose a significant threat. Or whether you’ll need to toughen policies as the number of remote workers grows, necessitating the deployment of more tools.
A cybersecurity maturity assessment can assist you in identifying gaps in your program. It is useful for conducting a comparative analysis, developing an action plan, and providing guidance on your firm’s future maturity.
- Assess Your Technology
Evaluating technology to see if it meets current best practices is an important part of developing a cybersecurity strategy. With the rapid development of malicious actors’ tactics, techniques, and procedures, an organization’s technology must be up to date with the latest patches and security updates. Outdated technology makes a business vulnerable to cyber attacks. For example, systems that are no longer receiving updates leave a network vulnerable to compromise because attackers find it easy to enter.
Once the technology has been upgraded to meet industry standards, it is critical to ensure that the business has resources dedicated to maintaining and supporting the technology. During a zero-day attack, for example, resources must be ready and available to respond to the threat and mitigate any risks that arise.
- CyberSecurity Budget
Cybersecurity is critical, but it is also expensive. Many businesses make the costly mistake of underfunding their cybersecurity budgets.
According to studies, cybersecurity strategy spending will exceed $1 trillion. However, the cost of cybercrime will rise by more than $6 trillion. These statistics are perplexing and appear to be disconnected. As previously stated, cybercriminals target highly complex and high-end servers and technologies. And current budgets are insufficient to prevent such attacks.
Nobody can tell or predict how much a company should spend on cybersecurity. However, make certain that whatever you spend generates a significant investment return. Remember that a low or no ROI indicates that your spending is insufficient and will be wasted.
If you integrate your cybersecurity strategy with your business strategy, you may reap several benefits. It will also make implementation and execution easier and more manageable.
It is well known that developing a cybersecurity strategy can be extremely beneficial to your company. However, make certain that your cybersecurity strategy incorporates email security, disaster recovery, asset management, and backup management. To limit attacks, find sponsors, and increase business buy-in. It is critical to recognize that cybersecurity extends beyond technology. Make your cybersecurity strategy as proactive as possible, and never assume your company is risk-free. The sooner you recognize that underlying risks will always exist in any business, the better.
Sun IT Solutions Managed IT Services Toronto believes that undertaking any task unless you are committed to excellence is pointless. Keeping this in mind, we treat your company as if it were our own. We consider the big picture while paying close attention to detail to deliver tangible results. So, how do we go about it? We effectively manage the budget and day-to-day operations of your IT and telecom environment, lowering costs and eliminating worries and distractions. This allows you to focus on what you do best: running and growing your business.
