For many it can be a daunting step to take in starting your cyber security journey when the realisation comes that you need to do more to protect your business, teams and customers from the ever growing risks associated with cyber-attacks. And herein lies an ongoing challenge; many businesses know they need to do something so will often focus on ensuring they have some technical solutions in place such as firewalls, anti-virus software and multi-factor authentication, however this is far from the whole story when it comes to protecting any business.
Quoting directly from the Cyber Security Breaches Survey 2021 published by the Department for Digital, Culture Media & Sport “this…survey continues to show that cyber security breaches are a serious threat to all types of businesses and charities”, going on to say “a sizeable number of organisations that identify breaches report a specific negative outcome or impact. On average, for those that do, the costs are substantial”.
Once a business becomes aware that it needs to take action to strengthen its cyber security there may be an initial panic regarding how to go about doing this, but with a pragmatic risk based approach you will feel less overwhelmed and more in control of what you need to do. Starting your cyber security journey doesn’t need to be something you do in isolation. When businesses work with CyberScale they will typically, within the first year, go through a journey that will encompass much if not all of the following work:
Cyber Security Assessment & Roadmap – looking at where you are today, and what the steps will look like for your business to get you where you both want and need to be, the assessment process will lead in to the development of the Roadmap which will take in to account the risk profile of your business and will enable you to prioritise and plan all required actions.
Cyber Security Strategy – following on from the initial assessment and putting in place a clear roadmap, ensuring that you have a Cyber Security Strategy developed and embedded in to your business is the next step. Within your strategy not only will there be a clear plan on delivering the Roadmap, we will also be looking at your security Policies, your approach to Incident Response Planning and how you are engaging your staff with Training and Awareness activities.
Implementing your plan is a process unique to your business and will often require some oversight and assistance from our team, which is when clients tend to engage with our vCISO service. Delivering the strategy and ensuring that all elements are embedded within the business cannot be where all your hard work so far falls down.
At this point in your journey it may feel like you have achieved all you need to, and you will have indeed achieved a lot, but the fight isn’t over. Cyber threats are constantly changing, with new challenges for even the most security-conscious organisations being realised daily.
By acknowledging that standing still is not an option and that Security is an iterative process, you will always be reviewing, changing and learning your approach to cybersecurity. At this point in your journey we can continue to work with you to ensure you have a process of continuous improvement in place and are always working towards embedding a culture of security throughout your business, working together to guide your Cyber Security Strategy in conjunction with Leadership teams to take the business forward, securely.
What underpins our approach is our belief that effective cyber and information security requires a strategy built around your individual business going beyond technical solutions, you can hear more of our thoughts on this in some other articles on the need for a strategy and guidance for business owners.