Cybercrime is becoming more common and damaging to businesses of all types and sizes. Effectively maintained and adaptable cybersecurity programs prevent attacks and respond to incidents quickly. Keeping up to date with cybersecurity news helps businesses to understand what to look out for and how they can adapt to keep safe.

The first step in building a strong cybersecurity program is planning. This includes identifying your assets, establishing an inventory and creating documentation.

Identify the Risks

The first step to a strong cybersecurity program is identifying the risks that could impact your organization. Identifying threats and vulnerabilities can be done through analysis of audit reports, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) vulnerability database, threat intelligence from partners and vendors, information security testing and evaluation (ST&E) procedures, penetration tests and automated vulnerability scanning tools. The assessment results can be used to develop an enterprise-risk score, which can then be mapped to controls on a risk grid and sized to an organization’s risk appetite.

Once the cyber risks are identified, they must be assessed to determine the likelihood of threat exploitation and their potential impact. This is generally done using a risk matrix, with a high probability of occurrence assigned a value of 1, medium a value of 0.5 and low a value of 0. A plan for corrective measures must be developed as soon as possible for the risks rated as high. Risks rated as medium require action within a reasonable period. Those rated as low need no immediate attention and may be monitored over the long term.

To be effective, identifying and assessing cyber risks must include your systems and the business operations that depend on them to function. The systems used will depend on the industry, for example, healthcare businesses would need to consider medical device cybersecurity to prevent hackers from gaining confidential information. Identifying the risks across all systems used helps ensure that the mitigation strategy addresses all business processes, not just the IT systems that are most vulnerable to attack.

Develop a Plan

The first step in creating an effective cybersecurity program is developing a Cybersecurity Incident Response Plan. This process starts by determining what policies and controls should be implemented to protect critical assets and systems. This will require you to take inventory of your digital, and IT support, including workstations, servers and internet-connected devices. You will also need to develop an understanding of the threats and risks that your organization faces.

This process should be done in conjunction with the IT team, so they can build a system that will meet their needs and security requirements. Consider how your plans and practices will work within your existing IT infrastructure and financial system. This will help you make any necessary upgrades or purchases to ensure your cybersecurity program is ready for the future.

Throughout the process, it is important to get executive buy-in. This is especially true when establishing goals and objectives for your cybersecurity program. These should be based on business priorities like protecting intellectual property. They should also be geared toward anticipating and reacting to frequent changes in the business environment. Finally, they should be clear about cybersecurity’s role in meeting those objectives.

It is important to communicate these goals nontechnically, as executives will be less likely to buy in if they are presented with technical security vocabulary and data points. For example, it is better to present the cost of a breach as an opportunity to combat cybercrime rather than a costly investment.

Implement a Strategy

A strong cybersecurity program requires the buy-in of all stakeholders. To secure the appropriate level of buy-in, it is important to clearly articulate a vision and place your proposed cyber security program within the overall digital journey of the business to help elucidate goal alignment.

An effective cybersecurity strategy will include measures to reduce risk in a manageable way and should also encompass a plan to remediate an attack that does occur. This will consist of having a data recovery plan, communication channels and responsibilities defined and enacted.

Keeping up with emerging threats and vulnerabilities requires an ongoing effort. This includes testing the security apparatus, updating policies and implementing training. It also means ensuring all assets are hardened, and the software used throughout the business is patched and updated regularly.

This time-consuming process can often take time to prioritize as the day-to-day business operations must continue. However, the costs of a cyber attack can be devastating, including downtime, a tarnished brand reputation, loss of business and class action lawsuits.

Implementing a cybersecurity program can be overwhelming, but working with an experienced partner who can provide the guidance and support needed is important. For example, leveraging established cybersecurity frameworks like CIS, NIST or ISO may help get the ball rolling and set a benchmark against which to measure your current capabilities.

Monitor Your Systems

Monitoring is an essential part of any cybersecurity program. The goal of monitoring should be to identify and respond to cyber threats and vulnerabilities quickly to minimize damage and impact on business operations. This involves continuous network traffic monitoring, security information and event management (SIEM) analytics to detect anomalies and enable multi-factor authentication to mitigate risk.

In addition, it’s important to have a strong backup and recovery protocol in place. This includes encrypting data at rest and in transit and having an up-to-date disaster recovery plan. Having multi-factor authentication enabled is also an essential way to improve the security of your systems, especially for users who need access to sensitive data. Multi-factor authentication requires users to verify identity using something they know, have or are, such as a password, PIN, fingerprint or other biometrics.

Cyber attacks have evolved, and more than current preventive controls may be required against emerging threats. Continuous cybersecurity monitoring enables the detection of new and advanced attacks to be made quickly. A security operations center (SOC) staffed with skilled professionals can help improve your organization’s prevention, detection and response capabilities by combining network monitoring, system configuration auditing, IT threat assessment, penetration testing and digital forensics knowledge.

With the COVID-19 pandemic and rapid adoption of remote working, it’s even more important for businesses to monitor their systems continuously. This helps ensure that their systems and networks are functioning properly and allows them to provide the assurances their customers need about data security.