Whether your business is a small startup or a large corporation, cyber-attacks can cause significant damage to your reputation and bottom line. Making it crucial to take the steps necessary to protect and mitigate risks as much as possible. An important component of a robust security strategy, and one that doesn’t often get discussed, is cybersecurity assessments.
Simply put, a cybersecurity assessment is a comprehensive evaluation of your organization’s security measures, which aims to identify vulnerabilities and weaknesses in your network, applications, and systems that cybercriminals can exploit to gain access for monetary gain. By identifying and mapping these weaknesses, you can proactively improve your IT and cyber security and prevent potential data breaches and other cyber-attacks.
A cybersecurity assessment can help build trust with customers. With data breaches becoming more common and publicized, many consumers are increasingly concerned about the security of their information. Regular assessments demonstrate your commitment to protecting (your customers’) data and show that you take security seriously.
If your organization handles sensitive information, such as in the healthcare or finance industries, you may be subject to strict regulations. Conducting regular assessments ensures that you meet these requirements and can help avoid potentially costly penalties for non-compliance, even if you have cyber liability insurance.
Types of Cybersecurity Assessments
There are many types of cybersecurity assessments. Here are a few that you may have heard of:
Penetration Testing
Penetration testing is a cybersecurity assessment that simulates actual, real-world cyber-attacks. Pen tests are usually performed by an experienced team of ethical hackers who use various techniques to exploit (known) vulnerabilities and aim to validate how easily an attacker could breach your systems. Just like a cat trying to catch a mouse, the hacker will try to find weaknesses in the system and fake exploit them to gain access.
As you can imagine, Pen Testing isn’t cheap and can cost anywhere between $4000 and $100.000, depending on the size of your company and the complexity of the network. On average, a high-quality, professional pen test will run between $10.000 and $30.000
Vulnerability Assessment
Where pen testing is a detailed hands-on examination by a real person trying to detect and exploit weaknesses in your system, a vulnerability scan is an automated, high-level test that looks for and reports potential network vulnerabilities.
In this particular assessment, a team of experts scans your IT systems using automated tools designed to detect a wide range of vulnerabilities, including outdated software, weak passwords, open ports, and misconfigured systems.
Once completed, the team will present you with a report outlining any vulnerabilities found. It will prioritize each weakness that needs your (your IT partner’s) attention to improve security and reduce your risks.
Security Risk Assessment
A security Risk Assessment is a technical assessment, or audit, of organization policies and controls. The assessment evaluates your organization’s security posture against industry standards and compliance requirements.
This audit usually takes the form of a questionnaire. It should be conducted annually, mapping your current security posture and comparing it to best practices and security industry standards such as HIPAA, SOX, NYDFS, CMMC, etc.
These are some of the questions you might be expected to answer:
1. What are your IT security best practices?
2. Do you have an established plan to address security breaches?
3. How confident are you of your ability to demonstrate compliance?
4. What kind of hardware/software/process are you using to detect, intervene, and terminate the operation of highly dangerous malware, such as ransomware?
5. Who has access to your data and your IT system, both in-house as well as from the outside?
If and when it becomes clear that there are security gaps in your processes and systems, you’ll have the opportunity to work with your IT support partner to prioritize them and create a time-scheduled remediation plan.
Third-Party Assessment
This assessment evaluates the security measures implemented by your vendors, suppliers, or other third-party partners that have access to your sensitive information and systems, like an outsourced HR partner, CPA, or cloud provider. The assessment ensures that these third parties implement adequate security measures to protect the company’s data and systems.
Why should that concern you?
More and more often, hackers target third-party partners as a way to gain access to their target organization. Remember Target? Attackers used a third-party vendor’s access (in this case, the HVAC vendor) to compromise their network and steal sensitive customer information.
Similar to a Security Assessment, this audit is usually in the format of a questionnaire and focuses on your vendors’ policies, processes, and procedures so you can determine the additional risk they pose to your organization.
After each vendor completes the assessment, you’ll (with the help of your IT support partner) need to examine their answers and analyze the results. This will help you understand how much risk you’ll take when working with them and allow you to take appropriate steps to address potential concerns.
In rare cases and high-risk situations, you may need to remove a particular vendor from your list altogether.
Doors and Hinges
Hackers are constantly trying to break in and will use whatever vulnerability they can to gain access to a network for monetary gain. More than 11 billion records were stolen between 2008 and 2020, and the number is only getting higher. Assessments allow you and your IT partner (us) to test all the doors, windows, and hinges before hackers have a chance to break in. Don’t wait until it’s too late. Remember, if the hinges are missing, a lock on the door does nothing to protect you.
Think about it.
