Facilitating critical business operations online has become a significant business risk in a world plagued daily by sophisticated ransomware attacks and data breaches. Today, U.S.-based organizations lose $100 billion annually due to cybercrime targeting over 594 million victims each year. Although prevention is better than cure, preventive measures are mainly viewed through the lenses of financial resources. Hence, the reason why small to midsize businesses typically fall short.

Therefore it has become more pivotal than ever to have a clear vision of your company’s cybersecurity posture to assure the confidentiality, integrity, availability, and privacy of business assets for competitive advantage. This article will introduce you to the essence of robust cybersecurity and how you can start building a strong cybersecurity posture for your organization.

What is cybersecurity posture, and why should you care?

Cybersecurity posture measures an organization’s overall defense strength of predicting and preventing cyberattacks and the ability to act and recover during a cyber-attack. Cybersecurity posture has an inverse relationship with cybersecurity risks and will serve as your shield against threat actors. It is the combined security status of all hardware, software, network, and user information of your organization.

A robust cybersecurity posture encompasses the following:

• Your ability to detect and recover from potential cyber-attacks.
• The visibility level you have in your company’s asset inventory.
• Your Company’s security policies and solutions.

Cybersecurity posture is essential for any organization because cyberattacks are increasing daily. According to the World Economic Forum (WEF), cyber threats are the third largest global threat. Therefore, it is highly beneficial to be aware of your organization’s cybersecurity posture so that you can identify potential security threats, make improvements in your system, and ensure you secure your data from threat actors. In addition, maintaining a robust cybersecurity posture can help you adhere to EU-GDPR, HIPAA, and PCI regulatory compliance requirements, helping your company to avoid thousands of dollars in fines and penalties.

How to Build a Robust Cybersecurity Posture: What are the Starting Points?

Now we know that your organization’s cybersecurity posture can help you secure your organization from potential cyber threats and data breaches. It also helps to ensure your customer privacy and company reputation. Ultimately, it helps your organization reduce the high financial cost of recovering from a cyber threat. No matter the size of your organization, you must be intentional about investing in Cybersecurity.

Around 70% of ransomware attacks involve medium and small-sized businesses. So do not ignore the threat. But how do you build a robust cybersecurity posture for your organization? And what are the starting points to keep in mind? Here we have explained how you can create a strong cybersecurity posture for your organization:

1. Awareness and training is the first step: Creating a solid security culture around your organization is essential. Employees and users are your company’s best assets, and educating them about cybersecurity is the bottom line for your organization’s security. With this, you will be able to avoid future potential cyber threats. So, build a user awareness program for your users, and conduct cybersecurity-related training programs for your employees.
2. Build a team and connect with them regularly: Establish a dedicated team for the organization’s security posture and connect with them regularly for feedback. The team can help prevent the potential threats before they happen and help recover the organization during an attack. Again, you can connect with them for feedback and any requirements to meet the industry standards of security.
3. Build a plan and test it continually: Preparing a security plan can help your team during a cyber-attack by defining what you have, what you need, and what needs to be protected. The procedure may include detecting potential issues, solving the problems, assessing the damage, informing the authorities, and preparing the organization for the future. Mainly, your plan will contain: identify, protect, detect, respond, and recover.
4. Investment is critical: It is not a safe idea to rely solely on employees for your organization’s security as threat actors are becoming more sophisticated and using higher-level technologies to break the security shield of companies. To minimize human errors and uplift security posture, you should invest in new technologies and software. It would help if you endeavored to deploy the best cybersecurity solutions for your company and maximize their potential.
5. Follow reputable security frameworks: A security framework is a compilation of international cybersecurity policies and processes to protect organizations. It includes instructions for organizations to handle the information stored in their systems to ensure integrity and privacy. It would help if you started with a security framework when building a robust cybersecurity posture. There are different frameworks for different industries and businesses, such as CIS Controls, ISO, and NIST. Frameworks help you in keeping track of your progress and prioritizing the critical security factors.
6. Check and manage third-party risks: There are chances that the third-party vendors you have been working with may have access to your business data to a certain level. So, check how they are managing the security and if they have all the necessary controls to ensure the safety of your data.

Conclusion

In a world plagued by sophisticated ransomware attacks and data breaches, maintaining security resilience is critical for business continuity. As such, businesses that handle sensitive data, such as personally identifiable information (PII) and other intellectual properties with a competitive advantage need a solid plan to protect their data from cyber-attacks.

Therefore, it is an organization’s responsibility to secure internal and external data by implementing detective, preventative, and corrective security controls to test and ascertain the cybersecurity posture of its daily systems. For a robust and sustainable development and assessment of your corporate security posture, collaborate with external security professionals who understand the current and future threat landscapes that are unique to your industry and business model.