How You Can Mitigate Security Risks

Author: Kelley Donald - MarCom/Wednesday, December 16, 2020/Categories: Business Security Services

Three steps to prepare for cyber protection:

Step 1: Define how much risk your company is comfortable with.

Start by evaluating your business’ tolerance for risk. Is it – as an organization – risk tolerant, or risk adverse? You can tell by what investments are made by leadership. Whether your firm is an early adopter of new technology, or a laggard. Whether you go with the tried-and-true choice or are willing to try new business strategies.

Every year, the Ponemon Institute tracks the number and costs of breaches and in 2019 the total cost of cybercrime for each company that was breached increased to $13.0 million.. Is that a risk your company can take?

Step 2: Identify your most important data and what (or who) you need to protect it from

Rather than thinking in terms of systems, or applications, first identify which data is most critical to your business. Key concerns are customer data, financial data, Intellectual Property (IP) and personal Human Resources (HR) data.  

Now, ask yourself, in what ways is it vulnerable? Don’t forget to think about internal threats as well as external ones. Having adequate safeguards in place to prevent against unauthorized access by employees and contractors is just as important as protecting against outside cybercriminals. By doing this assessment and understanding what your data risks are, you’re in a better position to plan and prioritize protection.

Step 3: Do a thorough risk assessment

This involves attempting to calculate the cyber risks you face. You need to talk to the IT organization to know where the data resides, what the current security posture is, and how data is accessed.

Ask about your organization’s security policies and how well and consistently those policies are being controlled. Don’t forget to include data that you share with people or institutions outside your business – such as with your banks, customers, partners, and suppliers.

Some leading managed security firms will do a risk assessment for you that analyzes your network activity and provides a customized report. That report will identify the security risks confronting your organization, allowing you to put together a plan to improve your security posture.

Conclusion

Executives across the country need to be aware that technology alone is not enough to protect their businesses. Needed is a combination of people, processes, and technology that come together to provide good governance across the entire organization. Knowing your organizations risk tolerance, and how it compares to your risk posture, is also essential. Finally, understanding what security products or services to invest in to ensure that your security posture is in sync with your risk appetite is critical.

For more information about how Consolidated Communications can help you improve your security stance, go to https://www.consolidated.com/landing/cloud-secure/cloud-secure

 

 

 

 

Print

Number of views (4005)/Comments (0)