Hacked business systems, phishing emails, customer data that ends up “on the street,” huge sums of ransom to be paid … you read about it almost daily in the media. It seems like data security is becoming a bigger and bigger problem.
And that turns out to be true. According to a report by Interpol1), the COVID-19 pandemic has had unprecedented effects on the global cyber threat landscape, and it is expected to continue deteriorating.
This doesn’t mean that cybercrime didn’t exist before, but it’s certain that the explosive growth in the number of remote workers and the related dependency on connectivity and digital infrastructure have made the already present cyber risks even greater and more visible. Nowadays, it’s not a question of if an organization will face a security breach, but when.
But how do you know what your organization’s potential vulnerabilities are? How can you allocate the available security budget in the most efficient way? A cybersecurity assessment helps with this. It measures the organization’s cyber maturity and identifies where the risks are.
1 ) Interpol – Cybercrime: COVID-19 Impact (August 2020)
When things go wrong, the consequences can be enormous. Not only financially—think about paying ransom, the costs associated with downtime, data loss, and system recovery—but also in terms of the organization’s reputation and customer trust.
The fact that data breaches are becoming more frequent and widely reported in the media means that consumers are more aware than ever that data security is no longer a given. They increasingly consider this when choosing a company or organization. According to research2), 84% of consumers are even more loyal to companies with strict data security measures.
Threats are constantly evolving, and measures that previously offered sufficient protection are often no longer effective against today’s cyber risks. In addition, there are legal obligations to perform routine security analyses, especially if your organization deals with data privacy regulations such as GDPR and NIS2. The EU is also drafting regulations around mandatory cybersecurity.
2 ) ZDNet: Top 8 Trends Shaping Digital Transformation in 2021
More and more organizations are looking for a way to quickly and easily check their security status. They want insights into their vulnerabilities and concrete recommendations for improving cybersecurity.
A cybersecurity assessment provides the solution. Through automated scans and analyses, it exposes potential risks, allowing you to make fact-based decisions about prioritizing action items in cybersecurity. It’s used as a baseline measurement and as a method to periodically keep a pulse on the situation. The better informed you are about vulnerabilities, the better equipped you are to address the organization’s cyber resilience in the right areas.
Additionally, an assessment helps build a business case and aligns IT and management teams. The most effective security strategies are integrated into all business activities, and to achieve that, you need buy-in from decision-makers.
The Cyber Security Assessment Tool (CSAT) is a software product developed by experienced security experts to quickly assess the current cybersecurity status and recommend improvements based on facts. The tool collects relevant security data from various sources within the hybrid IT environment. Additionally, CSAT uses a questionnaire to gather information about policies and other important indicators.
The tool is installed on a server within the network and then collects relevant data by scanning:
The CSAT is based on the CIS framework, a widely used set of best practices designed for systematically managing cyber risks within companies and organizations. It fits seamlessly into a Zero Trust policy, where all employees, devices, and applications are secured, wherever they are, without hindering productivity.
But the CSAT also helps you achieve certification for other frameworks. The assessment can also measure how your organization performs against other frameworks, such as the Baseline Information Security Government (BIO) framework. This is a set of requirements used by the Dutch government for securing information and systems.
In our whitepaper ‘Security Assessment: The First Step in Cybersecurity,’ we delve deeper into the importance of periodic risk analyses. How mature is your organization in terms of cybersecurity? What are the vulnerabilities and risks? What steps can you take to improve security, and where should your priorities lie? Concrete, actionable information that you can apply immediately.
Would you like to learn more? Download the whitepaper now!
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