Guess who doesn’t take a summer vacation. Cybercriminals. SMBs continue to be a key target for damaging cyberattacks, every single day. In fact, cyberattacks are the number one threat among small organizations surveyed this year. Most SMBs reported that cybersecurity was mostly discussed only after an incident occurred. To defend your SMB, cybersecurity needs to be a proactive and present part of your planning. After all, the best defense for your business is a strong offense—meaning you need a robust, effective, and up-to-date cybersecurity strategy, no matter your size or industry. And the best place to start is by conducting a cyber risk assessment of your organization.

In this post, we explain why a cyber risk assessment is a necessary—and uniquely beneficial—next step to protect your SMB. We also highlight seven key steps to consider when conducting your assessment.

What is a Cyber Risk Assessment?

We take our vehicles into the shop for routine service checks. We take ourselves into the doctor for physicals to check our overall health and wellbeing. A cyber risk assessment is similar. It’s an opportunity to assess your ability to protect your data and technology environment from cyber-related threats.

A cyber risk assessment is not a cure. Rather, it’s a diagnostic tool to help you and your team identify your vulnerabilities and prioritize areas for improvement, like better protecting sensitive data, ensuring compliance, and reducing your overall risk of attack. The results of your cyber risk assessment can also help you refine or develop a response and recovery plan, should you fall victim of a cyberattack. 

Seven Steps to a Cyber Risk Assessment

You can follow established frameworks for your cyber risk assessment, such as the National Institute of Standards and Technology Cybersecurity Framework or the ISO/IEC 27001 information security management system standard. But you can also develop your own bespoke approach and methodology. If so, we suggest you follow these seven general steps.

• Step 1: Define the scope. Early on, take inventory of your technology environment and catalog what needs to be assessed, such as your network, system, and data. This will help you determine the boundaries of your cyber risk assessment and stay within clear parameters.

• Step 2: Identify threats. You’ll need to enter your assessment with a working knowledge of the tactics and methods employed by nefarious actors. These are the techniques that have the potential to damage your organization and your assets, such as new ransomware variants and sophisticated phishing attempts.

• Step 3: Identify assets. Make a list of your critical assets, such as hardware, software, and data. If possible, assign a priority rating for each asset (e.g., on a scale of 1 to 10) based on its importance to your business and operations. This will also help you triage and allocate resources once you’ve completed your risk assessment. 

• Step 5: Identify vulnerabilities. Depending on your framework or approach, you might employ methods like network scans or penetration testing to identify your vulnerabilities. Often, small business environments share common vulnerabilities (e.g. operating system vulnerabilities or human vulnerabilities) which can act as a guidepost as you get started. 

• Step 6: Document findings. As you conduct your cyber risk assessment, establish a clear plan to fully document the identified risks—and be detailed about it! Later, this will help you prioritize the identified risks and turn your findings into actionable plans and strategies. 

• Step 7: Implement security measures. Once you’ve identified, assessed, and prioritized your unique risks, you can establish practical steps to mitigate the risks. This might be enhanced security via firewalls, encryption, or access controls. It might also involve employee training to help your team act as your first line of defense against intrusions. 

Get Help, If you Need It

A cyber risk assessment is a critical step to protect your SMB from the devastating impact of a cyberattack or intrusion. It can also be a daunting undertaking, especially if you lack the expertise or resources to carry it out. You might consider working with a trusted partner to conduct the assessment, to reduce the burden on your busy team and ensure the assessment is complete—and actionable.

At N8 Solutions, this is exactly why we offer a free Network Security Assessment and Audit. Together, we can take stock of your current security environment to identify your risks and vulnerabilities so you can develop the right plan of attack.

We’ll work in tandem with you to assess your network security and backup data processes and review your software configurations. At the end, you’ll receive a no-strings-attached audit report with our expert recommendations. Please get in touch with us today, before you sign off for that summer vacation!