What is a cyber vulnerability assessment?
A cyber vulnerability assessment company, also known as a security assessment, begins by identifying an organization’s computer networks, hardware, software, and applications, and then conducts either penetration testing or vulnerability scans to determine the information security risk associated with the IT assets, including but not limited to network security and web application security.
What are the key benefits of cyber vulnerability assessment?
Following the identification and evaluation of possible risks as part of the cyber vulnerability assessment, the company may implement remedial methods to enhance its cybersecurity posture and mature its compliance posture. Furthermore, cybersecurity compliance mandates that enterprises regularly check for control flaws and emerging threats that affect their security and compliance profiles.
Understanding the hazards that have the greatest direct impact on your organization is essential for developing your cyber vulnerability assessment. However, because bad actors target enterprises based on a range of characteristics, a specialized cyber vulnerability assessment is required.
Strategies for developing your cyber vulnerability assessment
1. Align business and IT strategies
Every cyber risk assessment should begin with the company’s long-term commercial goals. Communication between the line of business and IT divisions must be ongoing. An eCommerce firm that predominantly operates in the United States may be required to comply with the security standards imposed by the California Consumer Protection Act (CCPA). However, if you want to extend your operations and focus on European consumers, you should consult with your IT staff about satisfying the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) security regulations of the European Union. Ensuring that all internal stakeholders interact during the information security vulnerability assessment process is critical to achieving successful security and compliance results.
2. Identify your IT assets
Even though this appears to be a simple initial step, many businesses struggle to identify all networks, hardware, software and cloud-based IT assets. As businesses embrace digital transformation, the amount, kind, and location of their digital assets expand. Similarly, corporations that combine with or purchase other companies must include these new assets in their cyber security assessment.
Organizations frequently struggle to monitor their cloud-based resources since the scalability of the cloud implies that the number of workloads and objects might vary at any time. Identifying all cloud-based assets may be difficult for enterprises trying to extend their operations while simultaneously securing their data from unwanted attackers.
3. Determine Inherent Risks
An inherent risk is connected with a certain type of business or sector. SCADA and the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) are two examples of inherent dangers connected with the manufacturing industry. Meanwhile, e-commerce fundamental vulnerabilities center on cardholder data and network segmentation.
Another potential danger is your company’s geographic location. According to global cybersecurity insights research, network security threats are higher in European nations than in North American countries. While you can’t readily change your organization’s geographic location, you can use cybersecurity data to prioritize the most significant inherent risks for a better security posture.
4. Setup & Monitor risk tolerance levels
The risk tolerance of an organization is determined by whether the corporation can handle, or in most cases, defend against the recognized risk. Based on their organizational structure and resources, organizations might choose to accept, reduce, transfer, or deny a risk. However, as part of your cyber vulnerability assessment, you should examine your risk tolerance levels regularly.
For example, if a company expands its operations, it may add additional cloud-based resources. To mitigate the additional dangers, a corporation that previously accepted some risks, such as employing open-source security solutions, may need to acquire products or hire more IT employees.
5. Review control risks
Control risks are frequently connected with manual evaluations. While a weak control may be digital, such as an unpatched firewall or an unprotected AWS S3 bucket, the cause of the weak control is frequently human mistakes.
Begin your control risk review by going through all manual tasks. Often, automating these operations might result in fewer control risks.
6. Establish a program of ongoing monitoring and assurance
Malware and ransomware are two of the most popular attack vectors used by criminal actors to gain access to systems. Most malware and ransomware programs are evolutions of previously known code.
Keeping this in mind, the measures that effectively safeguard your firm now may not decrease risk tomorrow. In addition to your control risk and human task review, you may choose to use an automated continuous monitoring solution. It will notify you of new hazards and will prioritize them for you.
How ITCompany enables cyber vulnerability assessments
ITCompany cybersecurity software ranks the efficiency of your controls based on variety of publicly available data from around the internet.
We check for eleven criteria, including DNS health, IP reputation, network security, and web application security. We not only provide you with a holistic assessment, but we also allow you to drill down into the 10 categories to acquire insight into your most susceptible regions.
Our automation decreases the risk of human mistakes associated with manual processes such as lengthy log reviews. You may use ITCompany’s Vulnerability Scan Service to prioritize your security efforts, record your repair actions, and demonstrate governance over your cybersecurity program.
