5 Steps Business Take For Their Cybersecurity Program

The continued rise in cyber-crime and the devastating impact incidents can have on companies, many businesses are now looking to establish their first security program. For small and medium-size businesses (SMB), this can be a intimidating task. The outsourcing of cyber security allows the SMB to focus critical resources on business operations and the trusted partner can provide required technology services. Cyber Securities company in Dubai are now focusing on the effective solutions on the emerging threats on the internet.

However, even with these new security service portfolio offerings there comes a time when a company is matured enough to start laying the foundation for their enterprise security program. Here are five actions, recommended to organizations for that successful cyber security program.

Inventory

The first stage a company will conduct in building their security program revolves around the fundamental concept of having visibility into what is on a company’s networks. Here the business will conduct an inventory of people and IT assets that access the networks, current IT and cybersecurity reports, any security metrics, policies and current security work processes. The business will also want to establish the first budget for security services and possibly review any current security contracts.

Assessment

The business needs to get a better understanding of its technology and business operations risk as measured against an established risk management framework. It is in this stage, the business should review its “security stack” and document its installed security solutions such as firewalls, AV solutions, IDS/IPS sensors, etc., and security procedures that are in place such as patch management, incident response and vulnerability remediation to name a few.

Prioritization

Here is where the business should begin building out its security plan by drafting the vision for upgrading their organization’s current cybersecurity strategy. They should first review the current security program, and any currently identified challenges such as a lack of executive support, incomplete inventories, previously identified audit gaps, and immature security processes. Once the business has completed this review, they should have a list of risk exposures that need remediation. You should priortize the findings based on their threat to business operations, exposure to meeting compliance requirements, and any possible unauthorized access to sensitive business data, is useful.

Cyber-Hygiene

Some services that are considered to be cyber hygiene are services like deploying firewalls, updating anti-virus definitions, running vulnerability scans, selecting and maintaining identification and authorization mechanisms, updating and implementing software patches, backing-up essential business data and securing personal data. However,it all depends on the business environment and the deployed technologies in use. It is important is for the business to build a resilient security program by establishing a mature continuous process of managing these services to reduce the organization’s threat profile.

Responsibility

By this final stage, businesses should have an active asset inventory program in place, completed a risk assessment of their current technology and application portfolios, possess a list of current deficiencies that have been prioritized based on the impact to business operations, reviewed all IT and security processes that qualify as cyber hygiene, and committed resources to ensure they’re incorporated into the new security program. Now, this leads businesses to their final stage in establishing an enterprise security program and someone to manage it.

Security, when it is broken down into its base components, is a discussion on risk and the impact it has on business plans and operations. This risk is what drives companies, as they mature, to establish their first security programs.