Cyber security must be a vital and important component of operations if your company depends extensively on the internet and technology. Security assessments should be carried out to evaluate both external and internal threats in order to make sure the cyber security solutions you take are appropriate and sufficient for your business. Regular security audits must be conducted. We’ll go through what security assessment is in this blog post and why every organisation needs it.
WHAT IS SECURITY EVALUATION?
A security assessment serves as the foundation for an organization’s cyber security policy and defence against security threats. It gives a snapshot of the organization’s current state of cyber security. Finding the resources that your company pays for but is either underusing or overusing is helpful.
For instance, a security audit may reveal a number of ineffective configurations that need to be improved in order to fortify IT infrastructure and offer peace of mind.
You also learn about outdated security measures and other weaknesses. Long-standing and unaddressed security flaws can produce serious problems that could endanger the security of the company’s data and impair system performance.
Let’s review the many security assessments that can be used to identify risks, evaluate those risks, and gauge the effectiveness of your organization’s policies.
SECURITY RISK ASSESSMENT TYPES
VULNERABILITY EVALUATION
The goal of a vulnerability assessment is to give a methodical analysis of the security gaps and flaws in the systems and architecture of an organisation. It functions by grading vulnerabilities according to their seriousness and offering fixes.
Testing for Penetration
Pen testing simulates cyberattacks on a company’s systems, internal and external networks, APIs, cloud configurations, etc. with the goal of identifying exploitable vulnerabilities.
RISK ANALYSIS
The process of locating, investigating, and evaluating the risks present in the organization’s IT environment and quantifying possible losses due to those risks is known as cyber security risk assessment.
Compliance Evaluation
To find the discrepancies between the current system rules and what is necessary for a secure network, compliance assessment is performed. It has to do with an organization’s compliance with particular regulations like PCI-DSS and HIPAA, as and when relevant. Risk-based measures to safeguard data accessibility and confidentiality are the focus of compliance evaluation.
Let’s look at why performing these security evaluations on a regular basis is essential.
THE CRITICAL VALUE OF SECURITY RISK EVALUATIONS
- Ensure data security
When hearing about a cyberattack, one of the first things that comes to mind is data security. By putting safeguards and mechanisms in place, frequent security assessments help assure the safety and security of important data.
It determines whether or not the data protection techniques being used are successfully shielding it from all potential points of attack.
The healthcare sector is a good illustration. Patient information, medical problems and illnesses, prescriptions and other medications, medical procedures, and other data generated in the healthcare industry are examples of highly sensitive data.
Such information should be adequately protected whenever it is stored, transferred, processed, or maintained by a healthcare organisation. Any or all databases, servers, connected medical equipment, mobile devices, and cloud storage can house the data. These platforms must all be as securely protected as feasible.
Risk evaluations, network blocking, and, in severe circumstances, system shutdowns are examples of safeguarding procedures. They aid in the prevention of patient data hacking and medical fraud.
To ensure data security, a variety of services are used, including web application testing, database security evaluation, and internal and external penetration testing.
- Reassign resources and determine training requirements
Until you perform a security review, you might not be aware of the resources your firm is under or overusing. A security assessment identifies weaknesses and aids in prioritising the resources that are required. As opposed to an audit, a security assessment also aids in reducing the amount of tools and resources that your business was paying for but not using.
This significantly lowers wasteful costs and frees up your IT money to allocate to other important areas. In addition to this, security assessments offer a platform for determining the training requirements for staff.
With the help of upskilling and training methods, gaps between employee education, operations, and company standards can be quickly discovered and closed.
- SELECT CYBER SECURITY POLICIES AND PROCEDURE EQUIPMENT
A data breach can result in significant financial loss for a firm, as well as legal issues, financial loss, and a blemished reputation. Not all companies can bounce back from it.
Therefore, it is beneficial to set up strong rules and procedures to improve your organization’s overall security posture. Start with a strategic security evaluation and have industry professionals analyse it to accomplish this efficiently.
Cybersecurity policies and procedures should generally include the following areas.
- Rules for managing user accounts and access controls.
- Risk management and information security governance.
- Standards to enhance the security of devices and workstations.
- Plans for business continuity, disaster recovery, and other corrective actions.
- With an emphasis on the proper deployment of IT systems and security controls, security architecture and design.
- STRICT BACK-UP PLANS
To reinforce the overall security plan, build contingency plans for disaster recovery, and maintain them current as the cyber threat environment changes, conducting regular security assessments is crucial
Whether the data for your company is kept on-site, in the cloud, or both, a security audit can help identify the critical data that needs to be backed up.
Prioritising the company’s most valuable assets is the first step; after a tragedy, the main objective is to quickly resume normal business activities.
The emergency plan created through the security assessment will include instructions for restoring data and services from backups and for other tasks in the event of emergencies and breaches in the organization’s information security.
- DETERMINE POSSIBLE SECURITY RISKS
Internal security concerns, such as a vengeful employee looking to wreak harm, are also possible. External security dangers include hackers trying to access an organization’s networks. Any viruses that might have accessed your machine hunting for important data.
Security vulnerabilities and dangers are revealed through regular security evaluations of the entire IT environment. If the organisation is aware of the vulnerabilities and isn’t just defending blindly, they can be ready and equipped with the appropriate tools and resources to defend against external attacks.
The security evaluation will also contain a classification of vulnerabilities based on likelihood and impact severity as well as recommendations for fixing them.
- SUITABILITY FOR SECURITY
Security assessment is essential for a business for a number of reasons, including security compliance. By comparing the company’s information security posture to internationally established standards and best practises, security assessments assist evaluate and score it. It can be viewed as a gap analysis that determines what is necessary to achieve the established requirements.
The HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act), which is applicable to all healthcare providers and connected services like insurance firms, is one example of a common security compliance for the healthcare business.
These organisations must disclose their data storage and sharing policies and are subject to scrutiny under this Act. The Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS), which applies to businesses that deal with cardholder data, is another illustration. The PCI DSS must be followed by every company that holds, processes, or transfers cardholder data.
The arguments for conducting regular and timely cybersecurity assessments have been covered in-depth. Contact Secure Triad if you want to learn more about security procedures or are planning a comprehensive security review.
We provide penetration testing services and can carry out objective, independent security risk analyses for your firm. We are dedicated to making sure that your company is protected from evolving online dangers.
