Cybersecurity risk assessments help organizations identify.pdf
- 1. Cybersecurity risk assessments help organizations identify, manage and mitigate all forms of cyber risk. It is a critical component of any comprehensive data protection strategy. Risk assessments have long been a part of information security, and whether you like it or not (and many don't!), risk management is your business if you work in this field. The digital risk threat landscape expands as organizations rely more on technology to do business—exposing ecosystems to new critical vulnerabilities. What is a Cyber Security Assessment? Cyber security assessments are defined by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) as evaluations that assess an organization's information systems for vulnerabilities. A cybersecurity assessment's primary purpose is to provide executives and directors with enough information about the risks associated with IT systems so that they can make decisions about how best to protect their organizations. Information security risk assessments identify risks to an organization by answering the following questions: Which information technology assets are most critical to our organization? What kind of data breach would have a significant impact on our business? Think customer information. Can all threat sources be identified? What is the likelihood of each identified threat happening, and what would be its magnitude? What is the nature of its weaknesses? How severe will the consequences be if the vulnerabilities are exploited? What is the likelihood of exploitation? What kinds of cyber attacks or threats could affect the business’s ability to operate successfully?
- 2. What is the level of risk my organization is comfortable taking? Answering those questions will enable you to identify what needs protection and develop the appropriate IT security controls or data-security strategies. You'll need to answer the following questions before you can do that: What is the risk I am tackling? Is this the highest priority security risk facing my company or organization? Am I addressing it in as cost-effective a way as possible? This will help you understand the value of data and how it relates to managing your risk on a business level. Why Perform a Cybersecurity Assessment? You should perform a cyber risk assessment because it's suitable for your organization, and if you don't do it, someone else will. Reduction of Long-Term Costs Identifying potential threats and vulnerabilities early on can help an organization mitigate the threat of a security incident. Provides a Template for Future Cybersecurity Risk Assessments Cyber risk assessments shouldn't be done once and then forgotten; they should form the basis of your company's information security policy, so you must continually update them as threats change. Better Organizational Knowledge Knowing where your organization is vulnerable gives you a clear idea of where to focus its improvement efforts. Avoid Data Breaches Data breaches can have severe financial and reputation repercussions for any organization. Avoid Regulatory Issues If your customer data is stolen because you failed to comply with HIPAA, PCI DSS, or APRA CPS 234. Avoid Application Downtime Internal or customer-facing systems must be available and functioning for staff and customers to do their jobs. Data Loss Theft of trade secrets, code, or other critical information assets could result in a loss of business for your organization.
- 3. In addition to this financial impact, cyber risk assessments are integral to information risk management and any organization's more comprehensive risk management strategy. Performing a Cybersecurity Assessment In Waterbury Let's begin with a brief overview and then examine each element in greater detail. Before you start assessing and mitigating risks, it is essential to know what data you have—where it came from, how long it has been stored on your systems/wherever else its existence may be noted (e.g., paper filing cabinets), who can access the information Begin by auditing your data to answer the following questions: What kinds of data do we collect? Where and how is the collected data stored? What steps have been taken to ensure our storage systems are secure and adequately documented? How long will this information be kept by us (or in some cases, deleted as soon as possible if not required for legal reasons) Who can access your data, and what kind of security is applied? Many breaches come from poorly configured S3 buckets—make sure yours are secured, or someone else will. Once you've figured out what type of assessment your students need, it's time to start working on the parameters. The following three questions will help guide you in this process: What is the purpose of this assessment? What aspects will it include, and what are its limits? Is there anything I should be aware of that might affect how you conduct your work (priorities, limitations on resources)? What people do I need to meet within the organization? What kind of framework does the organization use for its risk analysis? It's essential to understand what you'll need to analyze, who can carry out that analysis correctly, and whether there are any regulatory requirements or budget constraints. Now let's look at the steps for a thorough cyber risk assessment. Step 1: Determine the Information Value Most organizations don't have the budget to implement a 100% risk-management strategy, so it's best to focus on the most critical assets. To save time and money later, consider implementing some type of standard to determine which assets are important enough to need immediate attention. Classify each asset as critical, principal, or minor based on its value to the organization, legal standing, and business importance. There are many questions you can ask to determine value: What are the potential costs of disclosing this information?
- 4. Is there a legal requirement to disclose it, and if so, what will happen? How difficult would it be for someone else to access our data in some way similar to how we currently do (re-creating)? Does this data impact your ability to generate revenue? Would it be necessary for our staff to perform their day-to-day work if you lost it? What would the fallout be concerning PR if a security breach resulted in customer information being leaked online? Step 2: Identify and Prioritize Assets First, you need to identify the assets examined during an assessment and determine what aspects of each asset are essential. Only then can you prioritize which assets should receive more attention than others when assessed. While a risk assessment can be performed on every building, employee, electronic data file, and your organization's trade secret remember that not all assets have the same value or importance. You must work with business users and management to identify your organization's most valuable assets. For each asset on the list, gather as much information about it as possible: Software Hardware Data Interface End-users Support personal Purpose Criticality Functional requirements IT security policies IT security architecture Network topology Information storage protection Information flow Technical security controls Physical security controls Environmental security Step 3: Identify Cyber Threats
- 5. Any vulnerability that could be exploited to breach security and cause harm or steal data from your organization— including hackers, malware, etc.— is a cyber threat. Natural disasters: Floods, hurricanes, earthquakes, and lightning strikes can be as devastating to an organization's data as any attack from a cybercriminal. Natural disasters may cause even more damage than hackers to do when they take down servers. System failure: Do your most critical systems run on high-quality equipment with good support? Human error: Does your organization have a plan to ensure that S3 buckets are correctly configured, and cybersecurity education is provided to employees? Any mistake can put your data at risk. If you don't have strong security controls in place, the loss or theft of your data could be devastating. Adversarial threats: Third-party vendors, insiders, trusted employees who are privy to privileged information, and established hacker collectives can all commit corporate espionage. Suppliers may also be a source of outside attempts at infiltration. Some common threats that affect every organization include: Unauthorized access: both from attackers, malware, employee error Misuse of information by authorized users: Insider threats involve someone who has access to and control over the system being targeted. Data leaks: Data in the cloud can be exposed through attacks or poor policy configuration. Loss of data: when your organization loses information or accidentally deletes it as part of poor backup or replication, the impact can be significant. Service disruption: loss of revenue due to downtime After identifying your organization's threats, you must assess their impact. Step 4: Identify Vulnerabilities Now it's time to move from what "could" happen to what has a chance of happening. A security weakness could become a threat, who will exploit that weakness and breach your organization or steal sensitive data. Vulnerabilities can be discovered through vulnerability analysis, audit reports from the National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST), data collected by software security companies, incident response teams' notes on what caused cyberattacks against their clients in the past as well as how to prevent similar attacks against in future. You can reduce organizational vulnerabilities by deploying automatic updates and maintaining physical security. Step 5: Analyze Controls and Implement New Controls Evaluate how systems, applications, and processes are configured to prevent or mitigate risks. Controls can be implemented through technical means, such as hardware or software encryption, intrusion detection mechanisms, and two-factor authentication. Nontechnical security mechanisms like policies and physical locks can help protect data.
- 6. Preventative controls try to stop attacks through encryption, antivirus, or continuous security monitoring; detective controls attempt to discover when an attack has occurred, like continuous data exposure detection. Step 6: Calculate the Likelihood and Impact of Various Scenarios on a Per-Year Basis Knowing your organization's information value, threats, vulnerabilities, and controls are one step; identifying how likely these events are to occur and their potential impact, if they do happen, is another. If, for example, you have a database containing all your company's most sensitive information and it is valued at $100 million based on your estimates— A breach would likely expose at least 50% of your data and cause a loss of an estimated $50 million. You expect a one-in-fifty-year occurrence like this to result in an estimated loss of $50 million every 50 years—or $1 million annually. Arguably justifying a $1 million budget each year to be prevented. Step 7: Analyze risks based on the cost of prevention and potential impact. Use risk level as a basis and determine actions for senior management or other responsible individuals to mitigate the risk. High-corrective measures are to be developed immediately. Here are some general guidelines: Medium - correct measures developed within a reasonable period Low - accept the risk or mitigate Remember, if it costs more to protect the asset than its value—you should probably look for another way (or ways) to ensure the asset is safe. Of course, you must consider how a bad review will affect your reputation and finances. Also, consider the following: Organizational policies Reputational damage Feasibility Regulations Effectiveness of controls Safety Reliability Organizational attitude toward risk Tolerance for uncertainty regarding risk factors The organizational weighting of risk factors
- 7. Step 8: Document Results from Risk Assessment Reports After identifying risks, the final step is to develop a risk assessment report for management. This report should describe each threat and vulnerability, how likely they will occur—and what you can do about them! Working through this process, you'll understand the infrastructure of your business and what data is most valuable to its operations. Once you've identified and analyzed your risks, you can write a risk assessment policy that tells people what to look for when assessing security issues. Cybersecurity is the core of information risk management for small and multinational enterprises. Establishing and following these processes can help your company avoid threats to its reputation and financial damage. Ongoing review of your security implementations and reaction to assessments should result in improved scores.