When it comes to managing security risks, failing to plan means planning to fail. According to a joint report by IBM and Ponemon, cybersecurity incidents cost an average of $3.92 million per event. Here’s a question: Can your business take that hit?
To mitigate the risks and impacts of a security breach, it’s important to have a cybersecurity plan in place as soon as possible. Having a strong network security framework that includes a detailed plan of action for responding to incidents can make a world of difference in how quickly a breach can be contained and how much damage is caused.
Here are a few tips on how to create a cybersecurity plan that can help you protect your business against future breaches and their effects.
If you don’t know all the moving parts in your network architecture, how can you defend it effectively? It’s important to create a detailed network map of all the assets that are a part of your company’s operations. This includes:
Before you start creating a grandiose cybersecurity plan, it’s important to have a firm grasp of what your plan’s budget will be. Everything has a cost. Some key issues to budget for include (but may not be limited to):
While the budget for a robust cybersecurity plan may be hefty, it can be well worth the investment. Think of it this way: If spending $100k on cybersecurity planning prevents just one cyberbreach, then your return on mitigation (ROM) after expenses would be about $3.82 million dollars on average. An ounce of prevention really is worth a pound of cure in cybersecurity!
Your business may need to follow different cybersecurity standards depending on several factors, such as:
It may be necessary to reach out to your state or municipality’s government office to research what regulations affect your business. These regulatory requirements may impact your cybersecurity plan and budget allocation—but may also prove necessary to avoid fines and other penalties in the future.
Every employee in your organization needs to have a clear understanding of what’s expected of them under your new cybersecurity plan. This is crucial for ensuring that, when action needs to be taken, it can be taken quickly.
If your employees don’t know what to do in the face of a cybersecurity incident, then how can they work to contain it? Who should incidents be reported to if they do occur? What can an employee do to contain different types of cyber threats to minimize security risks and impacts?
Assigning clear roles and responsibilities can help answer these questions for employees to encourage decisive action that saves your company from harm.
It isn’t enough to just create a plan—it’s important to ensure everyone understands it, too! In your cybersecurity plan, you need to allocate resources to train new and existing employees to learn what their roles and responsibilities are so they can act on them if the time comes.
Additionally, training is a good way to improve cybersecurity awareness in your organization in general—helping employees learn to recognize cyber threats and risks so they can avoid them. Simulated phishing attacks and other tests can help reinforce training lessons and keep employees on their toes to further encourage a corporate culture of cyber safety.
Leadership should be included in this training. This helps to reinforce the cyber-secure culture at the top, show employees that management is taking the issue seriously, and generate more understanding of the security risks the company faces amongst decision-makers.
This article provides a few “broad strokes” steps for how to create a security plan for protecting your data, but it doesn’t cover everything. It’s important to remember that protecting your business from cyber threats is too important to leave it to a DIY solution! So, reach out to the ideaBOX team today!
We’re here to help you protect your business from cyberbreaches and security incidents so you can focus on what you do best.