Everyone wants to protect their business from threats. Thus, every business is working on creating a good cybersecurity plan. Your cybersecurity plan should help you in identifying security risks. You can use your cybersecurity plan for mitigating these risks. However, most people actually confuse cyber threat management with risk management.
Risk management is very important in cybersecurity. In this article, we are going to talk about risk management in cybersecurity.
What is Risk management?
Most people confuse cyber threat management with risk management. However, these two terms are actually very different. Cyber threats are the attack methods that are used by attackers. Cybersecurity risks help us in understanding the impact of these cyber threats.
For example, you can consider phishing as a cyber threat. However, the damage caused by the phishing attack is the risk.
Risk management will help us in finding the cybersecurity risks which are most likely to occur. Also, it will help us in understanding the impact of these attacks. You can apply proper security controls for mitigating these risks.
Why you should manage Security risks:
Cybersecurity risk management will have a direct impact on your business success. Thus, you should implement strict risk management controls. These strict controls will protect your business from cyber threats. Also, they will minimize the impact of these attacks. Your organization can recover from even the worst cybersecurity breaches.
It will help you in finding vulnerabilities in your network. Thus, you can use security controls for protecting your network. If you don’t know about the vulnerabilities present in your network, then you can’t protect your network.
For example, your network might be vulnerable to ransomware attacks. Risk management will help you in finding that you are vulnerable to ransomware attacks. Thus, you can implement anti-ransomware measures like creating remote backups. This will ensure that you can easily restore your data in case of a ransomware attack. If you don’t know about the vulnerabilities in your network, then you will never fix them. Thus, you will lose data in case of a data breach. Companies that know about the vulnerabilities present in their network can create a recovery plan. They will use remote backups for storing their data. Thus, they can easily restore their data from backup. If you don’t have a backup and you are hit by ransomware, then you need to pay a heavy ransom. Sometimes they can permanently scramble your data.
You should proactively try to mitigate these security risks. This will help you in minimizing the impact of these threats. Many companies still don’t know how to mitigate these security risks. We are going to share some tips that will help you in managing risks in your organization.
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Find data and applications that you need to protect
You should know about the sensitive data that you are storing. It is very important to protect these sensitive data and applications from attackers. You might have access to general data that is not important for your business. Thus, you can protect it after protecting your sensitive data. You can invest money in important risk management measures. Most companies use regulatory requirements for finding sensitive data. For example, if you are operating in the healthcare sector, then you need to follow HIPAA compliance. Similarly, financial institutions need to follow the PCI DSS compliance. You can use the regulatory requirements for finding sensitive applications and data.
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Estimate the impact of threats
You need to first find the assets that you need to protect. After that, you need to estimate the impact of different threats. For example, suppose that hackers stole your customer’s sensitive data. You might need to provide identity theft to all your customers. Thus, you need to consider the cost of it. If your business is hit by a ransomware attack, then your business will lose revenue every second. You need to calculate the amount of revenue that you will lose for every hour of downtime. Your aim will be to first deal with threats that have the biggest impact. After that, you can deal with threats with moderate impact.
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Estimate the probability of every attack
You should also estimate the likelihood of every threat. Some cyberthreats are easier to execute. For example, the likelihood of phishing attacks is generally more. You can use cyber threat intelligence feed for finding the most popular threats. Also, you can find the threats that attackers are using for attacking organizations. You can also find out the precautions that companies are using for dealing with these attacks. This will help you in protecting your business from these cyber attacks.
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You need to define your tolerance
You can never create a perfect risk management strategy. It is impossible to protect your business from every threat. Sometimes attackers can use zero-day attacks for attacking your business. However, you should still try to protect your business from common attacks. This will ensure that hackers can’t use simple attacks for attacking your business. You also need to define an acceptable level of threat. This will help you in determining the impact that your business can take. Try to protect your most critical assets first and then you can focus on other IT assets. Also, you can optimize your ROI by creating a risk management strategy.
Conclusion
These tips will help you in creating a risk management strategy. However, most small businesses don’t have access to a security team. Thus, they can’t create these strategies. If you don’t have access to an IT security team, then you should consider working with an MSP. Experienced MSPs like Bleuwire can help you in creating a risk management strategy. They will help you in implementing the best security controls. Also, they will find the vulnerabilities present in your network. They will also help you in fixing these vulnerabilities. Thus, you don’t need to worry about hiring an in-house IT security team. If you need more information regarding IT security services, then you can contact Bleuwire.
Contact us today to learn about Bleuwire™ services and solutions in how we can help your business.
