What Is My Company’s Cybersecurity Posture? (Plus 10 Ways To Improve It)
In today’s technology environment, global access is no longer a luxury for day-to-day personal and business operations. It’s a necessity.
Businesses have a high responsibility to ensure security for your data and the data you keep about others (including your customers and your vendors). This demands a strong cybersecurity posture.
What is cybersecurity posture?
Your organization’s cybersecurity posture encompasses your overarching approach to how your assets are digitally stored, monitored and protected. Your cybersecurity posture would include any effort or aspect related to safeguarding your organization’s digital activity.
How do I know what my company’s cybersecurity posture is?
Every company has a cybersecurity posture, whether you’ve intentionally crafted one or not.
The best way to pinpoint your company’s exact cybersecurity posture is to have an assessment performed that’s designed to identify vulnerabilities in your systems.
This typically includes a review of your internal and external technology environment. Tests may also be performed on various data security measures like firewalls, anti-virus tools, patches, internal controls, remote access and more to determine what your full cybersecurity posture is.
For an objective and honest opinion, it’s important to have trained cybersecurity professionals conduct the assessment. They’ll be able to provide documentation of your unique vulnerabilities, offer recommendations for adjustments and guide you through making tangible improvements to your cybersecurity posture.
How do I improve my company’s cybersecurity posture?
Improving your company’s cybersecurity posture will depend largely on your unique operations, industry and risks. However, some of the most common ways to improve your organization’s cybersecurity posture are:
Document a Cybersecurity Policy
It’s important to start by formulating cybersecurity policies and procedures that are the best fit for your specific company. Consider your risks, weaknesses and where your business might be most susceptible to an attack and use that information to formulate preventative best practices for your team.
Formulate protocol for what your employees should be aware of and revisit your policies frequently. Just as technology evolves, so does cybercrime, and your cybersecurity posture must keep up with it.
Educate Your Employees About Cybersecurity
Creating materials and polices concerning cybersecurity is important, but on their own, written regulations may not be effective enough to fully equip your team and strengthen your cybersecurity posture. Also consider hosting interactive education events that allow team members to engage, ask questions and learn free from other distractions.
An interactive environment may allow your team to grasp a fuller understanding of the gravity of cybersecurity and their role in protecting your company.
Investing in employee cybersecurity education may cost more in the short term, but if your employees are properly informed, their training could save you much more in the long term by preventing expensive cyberattacks.
Company employees must understand how to recognize and respond to a cyberattack. The best cybersecurity posture in the world won’t stop a cyber-thief if an employee lets one wander right in.
Enable Verification Tools
Verification tools are a particularly effective solution that can help to protect your internal systems from external threats and ultimately strengthen your cybersecurity posture. Multi-factor authentication and single-sign-on authentication are some of the simplest ways to confirm that employees or customers are who they say they are.
In multi-factor authentication, when users logs in, they’ll need to confirm their identity with a secondary device. This can protect systems even if a username and password may be compromised.
With single-sign-on, if a user has been granted access to a series of programs, then one username and password can be used to log in to all of these programs within the series at once. This can decrease the risk of an employee mistakenly providing login credentials in a phishing attack.
Prioritize Data Security
Don’t cut corners with data protection and security. For a strong cybersecurity posture, be sure that your company has a business continuity plan that encompasses how your data is stored, backed up, protected and—in the event of an incident—recovered.
The more you are familiar with cyber-threats, cybersecurity and how cybercriminals can break into your system, the better prepared you’ll be to prevent a potential breach and survive a cyberattack against your business.
Know Your Vendors’ Policies
Your cybersecurity posture doesn’t just consider aspects within your organization. It’s also important to institute a strong vendor management policy to mitigate your risk if one of your vendor’s organizations experiences a breach.
Ensure Compliance With Regulations
Any business that accepts credit cards is required to meet the requirements of Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard compliance (PCI DSS). But unfortunately, many companies aren’t following the most basic requirements.
Depending on the nature and operations of your organization, you may have a long list of other requirements you’re obligated to meet.
Ensuring that you’re complying with appropriate regulations is an essential part of your company’s cybersecurity posture. Noncompliance can lead to expensive penalties, data loss and a damaged reputation for your business.
Examine Your Internal Controls
Setting and documenting proper roles and responsibilities internally can play a huge part in improving your cybersecurity posture. This can help your organization adhere to regulations, enhance efficiencies and protect against risks related to your use of data.
Depending on your specific organization, you may even consider having a SOC examination performed to review your internal controls and give confidence to your customers that you are effectively protecting their information.
Use Anti-Virus and Other Protection Tools
Many hackers use popups that act as a malware program to hack into a computer. Anti-virus and other protection tools can be a basic first line of defense and one of the simplest areas to improve your cybersecurity posture.
Be sure to keep your anti-virus and protection program up to date and apply patches when they are available. The only way your system can fight the most recent viruses is if it is kept as current as possible.
Obtain Cybersecurity Insurance
Cybersecurity insurance transfers some risk of security breach by providing some level of financial recovery related to direct financial loss, forensic investigations, legal defense, etc.
However, before you buy, you must be very familiar with what risks are covered, the policy language and liability limitations. Make sure you incorporate the mechanisms and triggers of the policy coverage to make certain you and your employees’ reactions do not limit coverage liability.
Work With a Cybersecurity Expert
Even if your company’s in-house IT team or technology experts are equipped and informed about your cybersecurity posture, there is still immense value to be gained by contracting a neutral cybersecurity advisor to evaluate your systems or offer up-to-date, industry-specific best practices for implementation.
If you don’t have an objective opinion about your system’s security, it can be hard to implement effective solutions that will truly enhance your cybersecurity posture.
It’s important to find an advisor who has the right experience to advise your company well. If you are a store dealing with thousands of clients’ data, then find an expert who is used to dealing with public-facing companies. If you’re trusted to deal with a lot of highly confidential data, then ensure you bring in someone who understands privacy law and how that data should be stored and used.
When it comes to your cybersecurity posture, it’s a good idea to have guidance from a professional.
Moving Forward With Improving Your Company’s Cybersecurity Posture
Just as technology and the internet are no longer optional for businesses, neither is cybersecurity. Knowing what your cybersecurity posture is, how you can improve, what policies to implement and how to select the right advisor are crucial ingredients to the beginning of a successful cybersecurity protection plan for your business.
But that’s just the foundation. Your cybersecurity plan should always be growing, evolving and anticipating the future in order to be effective.
