Accessible malware has made it much easier to carry out attacks. This has led to an increase in cybercrime activity. For this reason, Organizations must have a strong cybersecurity posture as this will enable them to detect and manage intruders across their networks.
Cybercriminals are looking to improve the security of your company, There are a number of best practices you can use to identify security gaps and quantify risk. These best practices will help you improve the ability of your company to protect valuable assets. They will also help ensure that your cybersecurity posture is continuously monitored and improved.
What is security posture? Why is it important?
Cybersecurity posture is a measure of how prepared your organization is for an attack as well as the effectiveness and efficiency of your overall cybersecurity efforts. It’s simply a sum of all information, networks, systems, and hardware that are considered to be in a high-security state.
Cybercriminals are constantly finding new and more effective ways to exploit weaknesses in an organization’s infrastructure. It is important to strengthen your security and recognize where you stand in relation to online threats. Your team can be motivated to take more action in creating a secure environment by understanding where security gaps and vulnerabilities exist within their organization.
How to evaluate your security posture
A strong security posture suggests your organization has the right measures in place to protect your networks and IT systems from potential threats. Your organizational goals and needs are the first step in assessing your security posture. This information will allow you to create a security plan and tailor processes to your company. Organizations can use a variety of security tools to automatically assess their security posture. These assessments often reveal hidden vulnerabilities and risks that can be exploited to help you prioritize your remediation efforts.
8 steps to improve your security posture
Here are eight top practices to help improve your company’s security posture.
1. Conduct a cybersecurity risk assessment
Assessing the effectiveness of your current security controls is the first step to improving your security. Conducting a cybersecurity risk assessment is one way to do this. This assessment will identify the vulnerability of various assets in your company. This assessment will inform you about the security measures you have in place and help you to determine what actions you need to take to improve your security.
It is important to assess your third-party vendors when conducting risk assessments. This will allow you to identify and fix any potential vulnerabilities in their systems. An open-source vulnerability in your supply chain could increase risk and cause your company to lose revenue. It is therefore recommended that you regularly audit high-risk vendors.
Also read: How Business Intelligence Tools Can Be Used to Mitigate Risks in Business
2. Prioritize business impact over risk
After asset vulnerabilities are identified, it’s important to rank them according to the risk they present to your company. This will allow you to determine which assets are most important for improving your security posture. It also helps you to establish risk benchmarks that you can use in future assessments.
Security ratings are used to prioritize risk. They assign a letter grade to your security position based on how it protects sensitive data. Your organization will have a clear understanding of the areas that need to be addressed in your security architecture by receiving a letter grade. These ratings may also be used by third-party risk management efforts, assisting in the verification of your diligence during onboarding or ongoing vendor monitoring.
3. Track security metrics
Security metrics allow you to measure the effectiveness and efficiency of your security measures. These metrics can help you identify ways to reduce risk and guide your future risk prioritization. Keeping this in mind, your program’s effectiveness will depend on the metrics you choose to measure. It is important that you track metrics that impact your company both from an operational and strategic perspective.
Your security metrics must be aligned with your security goals and not too complex in order to bring value. These metrics are used to track, identify, and report on key performance indicators (KPIs). It is crucial that they provide reliable, easy-to-understand data. Your security metrics can then be used to inform future security decisions.
A metric’s effectiveness can depend on how mature your organization’s security programs are. It is important to set achievable goals for each metric that you track so that it can continue to assess your security position as it evolves.
4. Implement automated cybersecurity solutions
Implementing automation in your organization’s networking environment is essential when trying to reduce risk and improve security. Automated cybersecurity solutions are used to monitor your network and give time back to IT departments, allowing security professionals to concentrate their efforts on high-risk threat areas.
Automated cybersecurity solutions can also help reduce incident response time and prevent attacks from spreading across networks. Automated resources can be used to evaluate security metrics if they are properly set up. We recommend you keep track of metrics that allow automated data collection.
5. Educate your employees
A lack of security training can make your company vulnerable to various cyber threats. It is important to give priority to employee training to protect against these external threats. Every employee should receive security training during their onboarding process. The curriculum can be modified based on job function or seniority. Regular testing of cybersecurity literacy by employees will enable you to assess the effectiveness of education programs.
Also read: 10 Best Security Awareness Training Platforms For Business
6. Make an incident response plan
A response plan is essential in the event of a data breach. This will help to minimize potential damage and ensure a swift return to normal operations. It is a good idea to establish response teams that will guide your organization’s actions in the event of a breach. To ensure that no time is wasted, you should also make a list of priority actions during an attack. The severity of an attack and the size of your company will impact the plan.
After the plan is developed, conduct a mock attack to make sure that everyone understands their roles and can effectively execute them. You should update your response plans at least once a year or whenever you implement new technology in your company.
7. Implement regular updates as needed
Insecure security practices and tools can make it difficult to protect your system and open the door to cybercriminals. IT departments should make it a habit to implement regular adjustments and changes in order to keep up with the latest security technology and threats.
8. Eliminate silos
Because IT and security teams work in silos, they are more vulnerable to attacks. collaborative security culture can teams understand the importance and value of cybersecurity by creating a strong, role for each individual in preventing attacks and their possible consequences. Teams can also benefit from a more collaborative culture that encourages them to work together in order to reduce risks and make things easier.
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