All You Need To Know About Security Posture Assessment

“Security is not a product, but a process.” – Bruce Schneier

With businesses constantly exposed to cyber risk, you need to build strong cybersecurity infrastructure from day one.

This means reviewing your organization’s security posture, a process known as security posture assessment.

It enables you to confirm how secure your organization is. It also saves you a lot of time and resources if you happen to encounter a data breach.

In this blog post, we cover in-depth the security posture assessment you need to secure your organization against cyber threats.

So, let’s get started!

What Are the Security Posture Assessment Levels?

Level 1: Planning and Preparation

Before investing time in an assessment of your organization’s security posture, make sure you carry out the required planning and preparation.

Determine key stakeholders and the resources required. Then develop a realistic plan of action.

Level 2: Reviewing Documentation

This involves reviewing policies, procedures, documents, and reference material related to task completion.

Level 3: Assessment

Check organizational internet exposure and conduct an on-site audit to measure your cybersecurity posture.

Level 4: Reporting

After the assessment is done, draft deliverables in a detailed report.

How to Measure the Security Posture of Your Organization

Adhering to a checklist while reviewing the security posture of your organization protects you from security breaches. A timely assessment will enable you to answer questions such as:

a. Is our organization and data secure?

b. Are cybersecurity strategies in place?

c. Do we have security controls to protect our organization?

d. How do we rate the cybersecurity measures we have taken against the OWASP Top 10 Web Application Security Risks and the CWE SANS Top 25 Most Dangerous Programming Errors?

e. How strong is our vulnerability management program?

Security Posture Assessment Checklist

In order to ensure that you maintain your security posture and cybersecurity remains intact, follow this checklist:

a. Identify and inventorize IT assets
b. Map attack surfaces to understand cyber risks
c. Build a team to maintain an organizational security posture
d. Encourage a strong cybersecurity culture in your organization

How to Strengthen the CyberSecurity Posture of Your Organization

Here are the top 4 ways you can do this:

Prepare an Incident Response Plan

Setting up a recovery plan beforehand enables you to minimize the damage that a potential attack can cause. It helps your organization to return to normalcy in a short span of time.

Therefore, you need to build a team dedicated to responding to these situations, with a checklist of things to be done.

Develop the plan depending on the type of attack, and its intensity. Once you’ve created a plan, conduct a mock drill to analyze team performance.

Assess Cybersecurity Risk

Thorough risk assessment is critical to strengthening your security posture. This will enable you to find out the intensity of vulnerabilities of an asset.

Timely assessment will also give you an idea of the security controls you need to put in place.

Make sure you evaluate third-party vendors associated with your organization so that vulnerabilities in your supply chain are identified at once.

Prioritize Vulnerabilities

Once you’ve found risks and vulnerabilities, identify and rank them on the basis of risk factor. This way you will be able to better prioritize as to which risk needs immediate attention.

Review the security architecture of third-party vendors and rate how effectively they manage vulnerabilities.

Once this is done, your organization and associated third-party vendors will have a clear understanding of dealing with cybersecurity threats.

Train Your Employees

Prioritize training your employees to combat different types of cyber risks. This will enable staff to take prompt action if and when they encounter risk factors.

Give every employee security training during their onboarding process. Develop the curriculum on the basis of the employee’s role in the organization.

Carry out a regular assessment to analyze employee literacy with regard to coping with cyber threats.

Track Security Metrics

Track security metrics at regular intervals and you’ll be well on your way to assessing the effectiveness of organizational security practices.

Clearly defined metrics will enable you to identify the steps you need to take in order to mitigate potential risks. They will also serve as a guide for you to prioritize risk mitigation in future.

Ensure that security metrics add value to your assessment. This means that you should be able to identify, track, and report accurately KPIs.

Automate Cybersecurity

Automating cybersecurity enables you to alleviate risks and promote best practices. This gives the IT security team ample time to assess the company’s network and review it for vulnerabilities.

It helps them focus on high-risk threats and gaps left within the security loop. You will also save time spent on planning incident response plans and cut down on resources involved.

Wrapping Up

Your security posture enables you to determine the level of cybersecurity you are maintaining. The strength of this posture lies in the resilience your organization has against a cyber attack.

Therefore, robust security posture assessment can go a long way in safeguarding your organization and essential data.

Need Help In Assessing the Cyber Security Posture of Your Organization? Contact Us!