Why Your Business Needs a Cybersecurity Risk Assessment

In today’s increasingly virtual environment, businesses must protect their network infrastructure from cyberattacks, including phishing, ransomware, and data breaches. Hackers gaining unauthorized access puts a company’s future at risk and significantly impacts their relationships with customers. Performing a cybersecurity risk assessment is one of the most effective methods for maximizing security. Learn more about its benefits and the steps involved.

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What Is a Cybersecurity Risk Assessment?

A cybersecurity risk assessment is a comprehensive evaluation of network infrastructure. It helps companies identify potential weak spots and entry points for hackers. It also provides key insight into an organization’s capacity to secure exposed locations.

By performing one, businesses can identify problem spots and prioritize improvement opportunities in their environment.

Cyber Risk Identification Steps

A comprehensive cybersecurity risk assessment requires business owners to carefully evaluate all elements of the network infrastructure. Failing to uncover all vulnerabilities leaves an environment exposed to a cyberattack and makes it challenging to maximize protection. Here are the five main steps in the process:

Step 1: Determining the Project’s Scope

Determining the project’s scope is the first step in any cybersecurity risk assessment and includes finalizing goals and pinpointing which areas are being evaluated. Every person involved should have a clear understanding of what you’re trying to accomplish. Also, take time to review any compliance guidelines that your organization must follow. Making sure you have the right system in place helps keep your company compliant with strict regulations and protects you from litigation and fines.

Step 2: Identify Risks

After finalizing a strategy and making sure everyone involved understands the goals and process, you can begin identifying your network’s risk levels. This involves looking at the following elements:

Identifying Assets

You can’t maximize your cybersecurity platform unless you have a thorough understanding of what needs protection. Take time to identify the devices, servers, and communication solutions your staff uses. Building a network diagram with an asset inventory helps you visualize the various components in your IT infrastructure and makes it easier to pinpoint entry points.

Identifying Threats

The methods used by hackers are evolving, and keeping up with the latest trends allows you to enhance your cybersecurity strategy. Utilizing resources like the MITRE Knowledge Base helps increase your understanding of the techniques used by cyber attackers.

Step 3: Analyze the Potential Impact of an Attack

After cataloging your assets and identifying the various threats to your infrastructure, analyze the potential impact they can have on your IT environment. The risk analysis should be based on the threat’s likelihood and not on past occurrences.

When determining the potential impact, assess the fallout on your organization’s confidentiality, integrity, and availability. These consequences have a major effect on your company’s ability to operate.

Step 4: Prioritize Risk

After pinpointing the risks in your environment, rank them using a 1 to 5 scale based on their likelihood and severity. This creates a clear picture and determines the areas that you should address first.

Step 5: Document Risks

The final step in the risk assessment process is to document all the vulnerabilities in your network. This is an ongoing task that you should revisit regularly to verify they’ve been addressed. When creating your registry, make sure to include the following information:

Risk scenario
Identification date
Current risk level
Treatment plan
Progress

Continually monitoring your cyber risk assessment program helps you make informed decisions and enhance network security.

Advantages of a Cybersecurity Threat Assessment

Few events are more damaging to a company’s long-term health than a cyberattack. Failing to enhance your organization’s data security exposes the personal information of customers and your staff and puts you at risk for litigation and financial penalties. By assessing the likelihood and impact of potential cyberthreats, you can pinpoint vulnerabilities before a hacker can strike. Other advantages of a cybersecurity risk assessment include:

Improved Communication

Performing a risk assessment helps streamline how your employees communicate. An effective strategy is a collaborative effort between staff members of multiple departments and enables them to offer input on ways to improve your cybersecurity program.

Increased Awareness

Performing a security risk assessment allows your staff to uncover all elements of your network infrastructure. This provides key insight into the various devices, servers, and switches that power your daily operations. Also, it gives you the opportunity to educate employees on the latest hacking techniques.

Minimized Downtime

Regularly inspecting your network’s at-risk areas allows you to implement solutions before a hacker can strike. This eliminates downtime and enables your employees to scale operations and enhance productivity.

Do You Know Where Your Network is Vulnerable?

You can’t enhance your network infrastructure unless you know where the weak spots exist. Contact National Network for a free consultation and learn about the advantages of our cybersecurity risk assessments.

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Secure Your Environment With a Cybersecurity Risk Assessment From National Networks

A cyberattack can occur at any time and can have a catastrophic impact on your company’s ability to serve customers. National Networks is a security-first managed service provider and embraces a proactive approach to our cybersecurity solutions. Our experts analyze your on-prem and cloud-based environment and perform a full assessment that includes the following services:

Risk assessment: Our team carefully inspects your environment to detail the potential fallout of a data breach.
Penetration testing: We use innovative software to simulate an actual cyberattack and review how your network responds to the threat.
Phishing testing: Your employees are the first line of defense against a ransomware attack and are often the most targeted entry point for hackers. Our phishing tests determine their ability to spot a malicious link or email.

We leverage our experience and knowledge to perform a cybersecurity risk assessment and repair the vulnerabilities in your network. Contact National Networks today to learn more about the advantage of working with our team.

Why Your Business Needs a Cybersecurity Risk Assessment

What Is a Cybersecurity Risk Assessment?

Cyber Risk Identification Steps

Step 1: Determining the Project’s Scope

Step 2: Identify Risks

Identifying Assets

Identifying Threats

Step 3: Analyze the Potential Impact of an Attack

Step 4: Prioritize Risk

Step 5: Document Risks

Advantages of a Cybersecurity Threat Assessment

Improved Communication

Increased Awareness

Minimized Downtime

Do You Know Where Your Network is Vulnerable?

Secure Your Environment With a Cybersecurity Risk Assessment From National Networks

Share This Post

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Why Your Business Needs a Cybersecurity Risk Assessment

What Is a Cybersecurity Risk Assessment?

Cyber Risk Identification Steps

Step 1: Determining the Project’s Scope

Step 2: Identify Risks

Identifying Assets

Identifying Threats

Step 3: Analyze the Potential Impact of an Attack

Step 4: Prioritize Risk

Step 5: Document Risks

Advantages of a Cybersecurity Threat Assessment

Improved Communication

Increased Awareness

Minimized Downtime

Do You Know Where Your Network is Vulnerable?

Secure Your Environment With a Cybersecurity Risk Assessment From National Networks

Share This Post

Related Postings

What We Do

Louisiana

Texas

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