When the majority of businesses started moving operations online, cybersecurity became a much bigger concern for everyone. Your business likely has some level of security in place, but having a strategic plan in case of cybersecurity threats is essential. Here are some ways to better prepare your business by prioritizing cybersecurity.
Where to Begin
It can feel impossible to know where to start when it comes to prioritizing cybersecurity. Realistically, you’ll want to start with your most vulnerable and most valuable assets and work your way back from there. What’s most valuable to your company, however, may not be what data thieves and hackers are looking for.
Does your business store customer data, financial information, or patents and proprietary information? These are all assets that are more likely to be targeted and stolen than any other asset your business has. Next, you’ll assess what the true cost would be if said asset were to be accessed and stolen. Would it be a significant financial loss and cause lasting damage to your business? If so, that asset should be prioritized when it comes to cybersecurity measures.
Create Rating Scales for Risks
Once you’ve identified which assets need to be kept the most secure, you’ll want to identify any potential threats to security and give them each a rating. Anything that poses a threat that would be easier and less costly to remediate, for example, can be given a rating of 1, while threats that pose a potentially destructive threat would be given a 5. Risks can also be placed on a financial scale, where you’ll rate each possible risk with the financial repercussions. A ransomware attack on an isolated employee computer, for example, would rate lower on that scale than a company-wide data breach.
Lastly, risks can be rated according to the likelihood that they would happen. Level 1 risks would be the least likely to happen, while level 5 are more likely. Common risks that companies face are related to staff, data, and compliance. By knowing where risks are coming from and how severe each one could be, your business can accurately prioritize cybersecurity across all processes.
Create a Cybersecurity Strategy
Now that you’ve collected and analyzed all the information regarding your business’s assets and risks, you can start creating a strategy that is accurately aligned with your business’s goals and priorities. Some businesses may be able to eliminate security threats altogether, while others will have to prioritize some areas more than others and mitigate wherever possible. This step of the process is a good place to start testing security, using an MDR to give accurate simulations of what could happen if various risks were to happen.
Have a Plan of Action
Ensuring that your cybersecurity strategy is in place will keep your business a lot safer, but there’s always the potential for a threat to slip through the cracks. That’s why your business should have a plan of action in case disaster hits. You can start by giving everyone in technology security a particular role to play. What roles each individual should have will depend on what skills and experience they bring to the table. If done correctly, this plan should ensure that in the case of a cybersecurity threat, everyone can leap into action and seriously decrease the impact on the business as a whole.
Get Management Involved
Last, but not least, your plan should be created and implemented with the full knowledge of top-level management. While those at the top may not know the ins and outs of cybersecurity, they should be aware that any threats to cybersecurity are threats to the company. Having their involvement ensures that your plan gets the backing, both financially and otherwise, of senior-level employees.
Having a thoroughly researched, planned, and implemented cybersecurity strategy may seem like overkill when threats are all theoretical. But should a security breach occur, your business will be set up to handle the situation and bounce back successfully.