Risk management is essential for any organization looking to improve its cybersecurity measures. To ensure your organization is protected against cyber threats, it is critical that risk management practices are on-going efforts, instead of one-time efforts.
Implementing IT risk management as a standard practice can help organizations prevent potential threats, increase efficiency, and make better-informed decisions.
In this blog, we'll help you navigate cybersecurity risk assessments. By the end of it, you'll understand that relying solely on cybersecurity solutions isn't enough to protect your business from cyber attacks. Instead, threat management should be an operational standard. Let's dive in!
The Basics of Cybersecurity Risk Assessments
A Cybersecurity risk assessment is the practice of understanding, managing, controlling, and mitigating cybersecurity threats that could damage your business infrastructure.
The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has outlined in its Cybersecurity Framework (CSF) the significance of conducting risk assessments for cybersecurity. Essentially, these assessments aim to identify, estimate, and prioritize threats to various facets of an organization - its operations, assets, individuals, related organizations, and ultimately, the nation - arising from the use and operation of information systems.
What’s The Main Goal of a Cybersecurity Risk Management Plan?
The goal of a cybersecurity risk assessment is to help decision-makers avoid prevalent and imminent risks. A good assessment must answer the following questions:
What are your business’ key IT assets?
What type of data breach would have a major impact on your business?
What are the relevant threats to your business and its sources?
What are the internal and external security vulnerabilities?
What would be the impact if any of the vulnerabilities were exploited?
What is the probability of a vulnerability being exploited?
What cyberattacks or security threats could impact your business’s ability to function?
Answering these questions will allow you to keep track of potential cybersecurity threats and eliminate them before disaster strikes. Having the answer to these questions at the tip of your fingertips will allow you to make better key business decisions.
Why Should an On-going IT Risk Management Become a Recurring Practice?
Today’s cybersecurity landscape is an ever-changing environment. That’s why real-time threat intelligence and detection are vital for a good cybersecurity risk assessment. Recent studies indicate 30% of respondents believe real-time monitoring is crucial to ensure a safe environment in every organization. But why do they believe that?
The reason is that in one assessment your business might be on the right track but in the next one, it might not. If your vulnerabilities are not detected in a timely manner, your organization could be at great risk. That’s why conducting on-going cybersecurity risk assessments is crucial for any business.
What’s The Main Blocker That Organizations Face When Trying to Conduct Regular IT Risk Management Assessments?
Despite the widespread collection of data, many organizations struggle to harness it for cybersecurity purposes. This lack of capacity to effectively transform data into valuable insights is a leading obstacle to making cybersecurity risk management a priority in the business industry.
By investing in managed or co-managed IT services, companies can improve their cyber risk, threat modeling, scenario creation, and predictive analysis, leading to an operational standard for IT risk management.
7 Reasons To Start Regular IT Risk Assessments Today
Reason 1: Keeping Threats At Bay
Managing risks is a crucial part of running a business. By continuously assessing potential risks, you can identify problem areas and formulate effective countermeasures to mitigate them. With proactive planning, you'll be able to keep threats at bay and protect your business from potential setbacks. Don't wait for danger to strike – take control with an active IT risk management strategy.
Reason 2: A Step in The Right Direction
Theft or loss of your crucial business data will definitely drag you down and send your customers into the arms of your competitors. Conducting regular IT risk management assessments will allow you to prevent the attempts of bad actors from compromising your business data while keeping your business and customer trust intact.
Reason 3: Enhanced Operational Efficiency
Staying on top of potential cybersecurity threats will reduce the risk of unplanned downtime. The assurance that hard work will not vanish into thin air will surely keep the morale of your employees high while boosting your productivity.
In addition, IT risk management allows you to reduce the chances of security incidents occurring.
Reason 4: Increased IT Security
Conducting IT risk assessments regularly allows you to reduce the chances of security incidents occurring.
Reason 5: Continuous Progress
When it comes to cybersecurity risk assessments, it's a mistake to think there's only one template that fits all future assessments. However, conducting assessments regularly is crucial to keep them up-to-date. These initial assessments will establish the foundation for IT risk management, setting the right tone for future evaluations.
Don't hesitate to conduct your first assessment and start building a solid cybersecurity risk management strategy.
Reason 6: Improved Business Insights
It's crucial to identify security vulnerabilities across your business to maintain a keen eye on important aspects. By doing so, you'll have a clearer understanding of what areas need improvement to keep your business safe and secure.
Reason 7: Ensure Compliance
IT risk management not only keeps your data secure, but also makes compliance with regulatory standards such as HIPAA, GDPR, and PCI-DSS a breeze.
BTI The IT Provider Near Me
At BTI we have more than 35 years in IT, security, and communications. We can take care of all your IT needs including installation, cybersecurity, maintenance, and upkeep of your IT infrastructure.
As IT providers, we can also provide the software and hardware your business needs at below market rate prices. Do you need assistance with your cybersecurity risk management plan? Take a look at our managed and co-managed IT services!
Ready to take your business to the next level? Contact us today and we’ll help you create the perfect cybersecurity plan for your business.