Nearly half of corporations reported a cyber attack within the last year. That’s up from only a third two years earlier and there is no indication that this trend won’t continue. In fact, organizations are constantly being scanned and probed for vulnerabilities and weaknesses a hacker might be able to exploit. Having an organization that has a deep understanding of information technology security as well as one that has been involved in investigating incidents when they occur will better provide you with identifying where your greatest areas of risk lie and what controls can be put in place to address those risks.
It has been estimated that over 80% of organizations compromised by outside hackers were due to end users bad behaviors. Whether they open a malicious attachment or click on an Internet link that starts downloading a virus it is often the end users activities that first opens up your network to a compromise. By showing your employees how hackers do it, and some of the most common schemes in use currently your team will be better able to identify potentially malicious activity.
Your organization may have in place all sorts of information technology policies but will they hold up and effectively deal with times of crisis. By having an organization that has reviewed numerous policies as well as one that investigates system abuse and misuse gaps can be potentially identified in your plans and your policies assessed as to how they stack up to your peers.
No organization has unlimited funds to spend on security. By performing a risk assessment your firm will be better able to identify your strengths and weaknesses and where your greatest exposures lie. This will allow your organization to prioritize spending to best mitigate risk in the appropriate ares.
Knowing where your corporate data and sensitive customer information resides is critical in determining were to allocate resources in securing them. Data classification and mapping aids in documenting where data resides, who is responsible for the data and what parties should be able to access it. Performing periodic data audits will help in determining if data such as PII or corporate data resides on computers it shouldn’t.
Taking a proactive approach of looking for evidence of hackers in your systems currently or in the past can provide a better picture of where an organization security posture stands. Whether it is specific business units that may need a deeper insight or another organization about to be acquiredlooking for threats within instead of waiting for the sirens to go off later can save enormous amounts of time, reputation and money.
An organization is as weak as its weakest vulnerability. You could have all the most modern firewalls, SIEMS and security products up to date but if Fred from the Department of Redundancy is running an FTP Server on a Windows ME computer in your network without your knowledge, this could be a flashing neon welcome sign for hackers. Assessments to scan networks for hardware, software and configurations regularly should help in addressing the Freds in your firm.