Every business must conduct an annual cybersecurity assessment
If you aren’t worried about the cyber landscape, you should be. Crooks never take time off. Cyber criminals work around the clock to take advantage of your most important assets. Sensitive data, personal information, health records, intellectual property—it’s all on the line. Cyber attacks can land from any angle at any time. And while security technologies like firewalls and antivirus software are important, they can only do so much.
The most effective way to thwart threats is with a robust cybersecurity strategy, and it starts with the initial assessment. Here’s what’s most important to know:
What Is a Cybersecurity Assessment?
A cybersecurity assessment is essentially a health check of your company’s security environment. Much like a routine physical exam, these health screenings focus on specific symptoms like data governance and compliance. Technicians perform a forensic analysis of your infrastructure and identify what’s working and what’s not. Based on the findings, the information gathered will diagnose the problem areas and answer the following questions:
- What cyber threats or security incidents affect the ability of the business to function?
- What are our organization’s most important information technology assets?
- What type of data breach would have a significant impact on the business?
- What are the relevant threats (and their sources) to our organization?
- What is the level of risk my organization is comfortable taking?
- What are the internal and external vulnerabilities?
- What happens if those vulnerabilities get exploited?
- What is the likelihood of exploitation?
How Often Should You Perform a Cybersecurity Assessment?
While some businesses only audit their IT system on an annual basis, it’s recommended that you plan at least two assessments per year. For best results, consider scheduling monthly or quarterly inspections. And if you do run into a cyber risk, schedule a checkup immediately following the remedy. The frequency of these assessments depends on the size of your organization, departmental demands, and the complexity of your systems.
Advantages of Cybersecurity Assessments:
- Long-term cost savings: Reduce spending on maintenance and repairs with a solution that strengthens vulnerabilities, identifies threats, and mitigates potential security risks.
- Sets you up for the future: Cyber risk assessments scale with your business. To ensure repeatable success, you get the benefit of an adjustable security template.
- Data loss prevention: The right security partner activates a restoration strategy to prevent your data from leaking into the wrong hands.
- Regulatory support: Security assessments reveal when sets of data fail to comply with HIPAA, PCI DSS, and/or APRA CPS 234 standards.
- Lack of downtime: Internal and customer-facing systems need to be functioning at all times, so an advanced security assessment is performed quickly to keep the operation running smoothly.
Who Can You Trust?
Cybersecurity assessments are an integral component to any organization’s risk management strategy. At Mosaic NetworX, we make sure your business is never in harm’s way. With us, you have a dedicated team of professionals who specialize in a variety of cyber assessment procedures. We vow to protect your business from data breaches and will be there to help monitor the security posture of every vendor that you work with.
Send us a message to schedule an appointment with one of our certified experts!