Cyber Security Assessments
The expert view, delivering you a roadmap towards watertight IT security
Cyber security has never been higher on the business agenda. As threats to corporate data evolve, your business needs security protocols that are comprehensive enough to offer protection in the short term but flexible enough to maintain their effectiveness for the long term.
This begins with an expert security assessment from iPower technologies.
Our team works with your business to understand the threats it faces and to analyze its response to those threats. From here, you will be able to implement the measures necessary to keep your organization, and its precious data, safe from harm.
Sign up and book an iPower security assessment today or read on to discover more about what we provide.
A COMPLETE AND THOROUGH ASSESSMENT FROM IPOWER
iPower Technologies’ in-depth security assessments cover the following:
- Mapping out a deep understanding of your current risk level
- Analyzing compliance with all regulations and legislation relevant to your industry
- Auditing and itemization of your current security controls and protocols
- Identifying critical data assets and the level of risk pertaining to them
- Undertaking ‘white hat’ analysis, assessing your risk level through the eyes of would-be attackers
- Identifying weak points in your current set of security controls
- Working towards an understanding of risk management in accordance with your short and long-term business objectives
- Delivering recommendations on what to do next, helping you develop a winning strategy for your ongoing security
AN UNBEATABLE ADVANTAGE FROM THE IPOWER TEAM
You cannot afford to get left behind when it comes to security. As a business owner, you are legally obliged to protect the data of your clients and partners. What’s more, your customer base expects you to adopt a professional and positive approach to security.
Regulatory compliance, enhanced reputation, scalable solutions, and effective security that does not impinge on your corporate agility and efficacy; these are just some of the advantages an iPower assessment can connect you with.
Sign up today and discover how iPower can directly benefit your business.
What Are the 5 Cs of Cyber Security?
It is crucial to know the 5 Cs of cyber security. They are:
- Change
- Compliance
- Cost
- Continuity
- Coverage
Just as technology changes, so do cyber threats. Because the cyber security world constantly evolves, businesses need to prepare for the threat landscape to change. Cybercriminals come up with new means to identify vulnerabilities.
Businesses need to be up to date with how to protect themselves against the latest cybersecurity threats and conduct cybersecurity risk assessments. They need an effective cyber security solution that adapts as the landscape changes and training for the staff to identify threats.
Cyber security compliance is necessary for businesses of any size. Like the EU passed the General Data Protection Regulation, the U. S. passed new cybersecurity legislation in June of 2022. Regulatory requirements differ somewhat based on the industry, but all need to be sure they meet the minimum cyber security requirements.
Having a secure password policy
Regular data backups
Ensuring software is up to date with the most recent security patches.
Cybersecurity assessment measures need to include personal data protection for customers. The staff must know the correct procedure for handling personal data.
The cost of cyber security is among the highest considerations for business operations. Businesses need to remember the cost of ineffective cyber security controls will be much higher. A data breach may damage a company’s reputation, causing financial loss and legal action. Affordable business cyber security solutions that make a significant difference are available for protecting businesses. The cost is no longer a barrier for small businesses.
If cyber security incidents occur, it is essential to have a plan to ensure business operations continuity. The plan includes:
Having a backup plan for data
The ability to work remotely
Trained staff who know what to do if an incident occurs.
Having a plan minimizes the impact and has the business back running as soon as possible.
All bases need to be covered. Businesses need to protect from various cyber threats that include:
SQL injections
Phishing attacks
Malware
Viruses
A comprehensive cyber security solution protects against the majority of threats. Cyber insurance is an essential part of a cyber security strategy. Cyber insurance helps cover the recovery cost and legal fees incurred if data breaches occur. The insurance should cover first- and third-party costs and the type of incident.
What Are the Three Types of Security Test Assessments?
There is a wide variety of cybersecurity risk assessment frameworks. The risk assessment used depends on the region and industry. The two broadest frameworks are the ISO 27000 standards and the NIST Cybersecurity Frameworks. There are more specialized frameworks that rely on the organization.
The private sector and government agencies collaborated to develop the NIST Cybersecurity Framework. Businesses most commonly use this risk assessment in the U.S. The original intent was to help enterprises to deal with critical infrastructure. Many companies use and apply the guidelines to cybersecurity efforts of their own.
NIST Security Assessment
The NIST cybersecurity framework is the National Institute of Standards and Technology that helps businesses enhance critical infrastructure security and cyber resilience. The NIST cybersecurity framework is well-planned and easy to use. There are five security functions of the NIST cybersecurity framework. Each part has multiple categories and subcategories.
The subcategories contain cybersecurity controls. They include a list of cross-references to standards and frameworks. Cross-referencing allows organizations to implement and map the framework to other standards and frameworks.
Any cybersecurity services provider or IT security team can reference the NIST framework to justify informed decisions regardless of the standard to which they must adhere. The NIST cybersecurity framework fuses several approaches to manage security threats effectively. They include:
- Auditing
- Role definitions
- Monitoring
- Procedure setups
- Training
Five pillars provide a solid foundation for developing a cybersecurity framework plan. They are
- Identification
- Protection
- Detection
- Response
- Recovery
They support cloud security protocols to execute NIST’s cybersecurity framework in CSPM (Cloud Security Posture Management).
ISO 2700 Standards
ISO (International Organizations for Standardization) 27000 is a series of best practices or a family of standards developed by the ISO. It is part of a more prominent family of standards designed by The International Organizations Standards.
The framework concentrates on security techniques, information management systems, and information technology that help improve and boost an organization’s information cybersecurity assessment protocols.
ISO 27001 explains information security management systems requirements. It helps organizations prove regulatory compliance related to protecting confidential business data and sensitive information is met.
It provides the best-practice Information Security Management System (ISMS) specifications. The risk-based approach addresses technology, processes, and people. The requirements of the information cybersecurity risk assessment process are
- Establishing and maintaining information security risks criteria
- Ensuring repeated cybersecurity assessment of risk produces valid, consistent, and comparable results
- Identifying risks associated with the availability, integrity, and confidentiality of information within the information security management system scope and identifying those risks to owners
- Analyzing and evaluating information security risks according to established criteria.
ISO 27000 demands the design and deployment of comprehensive information security controls. It helps address security risks thought to be too dangerous. The approach ensures management adopts procedures and processes that provide compliance and security.
It covers a corporation’s internal information and that of third-party vendors. The living document constantly evolves to keep up to date with new information needs and provide ongoing guidance.
Specialized Types of Cybersecurity Risk Assessments
The list of other types of cybersecurity risk assessments is long. It includes:
- Vulnerability Cybersecurity Assessment
- Penetration Testing
- Compromise Assessment
- Social Engineering assessment
- Red teaming or Red-Team Assessment
- Cloud Security Assessment
- Third-Party Risk Assessment
- Risk Assessment
- Security Audit
- Bug Bounty
- Application Security Program Assessment
- CIS Control Assessment
The most performed cybersecurity risk assessment is Vulnerability Assessment. It is automated testing used to perform a cybersecurity risk assessment within a limited scope to track flaws or security bugs in assets, such as data, code, infrastructure, network, or application.
Flaws are categorized by the risk they pose. Penetration Testing is a risk management strategy that exploits the categorized security flaws. It is an in-depth exploitation of vulnerabilities that tests a company’s security posture through the perspective of malicious attackers.
Compromise Risk Assessment identifies traces of breach. This cybersecurity risk assessment can be split into parts. It reviews the infrastructure and connected endpoints, activities, traffic, and logs to discover Indicators of Compromise (IoC). The Compromise Risk Assessment aids in hunting down the attacker who resides in the current or was active in the recent history of the IT environment. As a proactive approach, a Compromise Risk Assessment is performed annually and before a merger and acquisition to ensure compliance regulations are met.
Social Engineering Assessment manipulates the human mind through deceptive or misleading information. Security professionals impersonate themselves to push employees or individuals to perform tasks, such as giving sensitive data or credentials, opening a suspicious link, or downloading an attachment.
Red Teaming goes beyond Penetration Testing. It is an attack that involves simulating cyberattacks that include lateral movement to maintain a foothold into the IT infrastructure and escalating the privileges while being undetected.
It tests an organization’s defensive capabilities. Red teaming involves targeting people, facilities, and the company’s security culture to validate that its defense controls can shield against and withstand a real-life adversary.
Cloud Security Assessment evaluates the cloud posture based on the service provider’s best practices. It focuses on the identification and mitigation of cloud environment vulnerabilities through a variety of control management and appropriate governance and security levels.
Cloud Assessment helps determine the access and weak entry points to identified risks and threats. It is necessary for companies that utilize SaaS, IaaS, or Paas models for daily business operations.
The Third-Party Risk Cybersecurity Assessment process is a cybersecurity risk assessment performed to quantify identified risks that an organization’s third-party relationship may impose. While outsourcing any product or service is typically done to evaluate the risk of shared information and remote, indirect, or direct access to critical assets.
Cybersecurity Risk Assessment maps threats and risks on identified vulnerabilities. It evaluates risk surfaces and non-critical and critical assets that can be affected by cyber incidents. It helps verify security measures and safeguard external and internal IT infrastructure against attacks and threats.
A Security Audit is a technical cybersecurity risk assessment of an organization’s controls and policies. The audit process maps the company’s current security posture against the security standards and requirements for the business objectives. It is an annual cybersecurity risk assessment to ensure company policy requirements, such as DSS, PCI, SXX, and HIPPA, and security compliances are met.
Bug Bounty is considered a continuous cybersecurity risk assessment. It is not a replacement for application Penetration Testing. Many software developers and organizations are adopting it. Independent security teams detect exploitable bugs and vulnerabilities in a company’s website, software, and other open assets and provide a risk assessment report so they can implement security controls.
CIS Controls and benchmark cybersecurity risk assessments help companies follow and incorporate the best security practices in the industry. They allow organizations to assess, track and compare their implementation, documentation, and missing configuration to improve security controls.
They perform a cybersecurity risk to evaluate assets from the inventory stage, incident readiness, and response. Cybersecurity risk assessment implements security controls of the entire organization’s software and application development to integrate security controls into the life cycle of software development, manage resources, and reduce the security skill gap.
Application cybersecurity risk assessments mitigate risk and vulnerability in the developmental stage with continuous patch management, vulnerability assessment, and penetration cybersecurity risk assessments.
Final Thoughts
Every day, cyber-attack advancement is causing an evolving cyber threats landscape. It is critical to perform cybersecurity risk assessments to identify cyber threats and close open paths.
Choose a cybersecurity risk assessment that is suitable for your business objectives. The material above is a list of essential assessments to take into consideration. One size does not fit all. The consultation experts at iPower Technologies are happy to be of service.