There are as many approaches to giving advice on cybersecurity as there are cybersecurity consultants. Fundamentally, there is a theme almost all approaches share: cybersecurity problems boil down to getting basic things, often collectively referred to as cyber hygiene, right.
Doing basic things right is great advice but you still have to figure out how to do those things in your organization. That is not so simple. A number of questions immediately arise:
- What do I tackle first?
- How do I know that what I do now will stay done next month/quarter/year?
- How much will it cost?
Doing basic things right also has to integrate with all that you have already done to ensure cybersecurity, much of which may be running in the background. And changes cannot interrupt your organization’s workflow, since that workflow is what your organization is actually in the business of doing. So, from feeling overwhelmed about the cybersecurity issue to realizing there are a discrete list of basic things to do we’ve quickly come full circle to a place where you’re feeling overwhelmed again.
In order to take control of this vicious cycle, you need to get a handle on your organization’s cybersecurity posture and develop a target profile for where you need to be.
- Grasp the costs to your organization in the event of a cyber “bad day” and the likelihood that day arriving so you can prioritize protection and resilience activities on a proactive rather than a reactive basis.
- Analyze potential solutions to measure what risk-reduction your getting for those prioritized protection and resilience activities.
- Measure the benefit and maintain those metrics to see improvement over time as you adapt to changed circumstances in your business environment, human resources, and the broader cybersecurity environment.
Cybersecurity is not just about buying another IT system or software package but about taking the time to make sure you are focusing on your outcomes and determining how you can manage the uncertainty that may undermine them in your organization.
When you are ready to take the next step in your cybersecurity approach, contact us.