Performing Complete Cyber Security Assessment 

Amid the growing number of ransomware attacks and administrative data breaches, corporate security isn’t getting better at the required pace. State-backed hackers from different corners of the globe are gradually becoming more fearless and sophisticated. From Russian grid hacking to infiltration in 144 US Universities by Iranian hackers and rampant data breaches that exposed 340 million records, the world has witnessed many mega data breaches for the last few years. These growing infiltrations have forced government backed-organisations and corporations to assess their cyber security measures because a minor exposure to their confidential data may impact their hard-earned reputation within no time. 

“It takes 20 years to build a reputation and a few minutes of cyber-incident to ruin it.” – Stephane Nappo, Global Chief Information Security Officer, Société Générale International Banking Pole. 

Corporations across the globe are leveraging the power of innovative technologies like artificial intelligence and machine learning to enhance their productivity, boost revenue, and take the user experience to the next level. However, apart from many benefits, these technologies have an increased risk of destructive cyberattacks. With the growing probability of cyber threats, a corporation must find ways to safeguard its infrastructure and valuable business data. 

The core objective of cyber security assessment is to determine, evaluate and prioritise threats to information and database. It helps organisations to recognise and prioritise the aspects that need improvement in their cybersecurity plan. Cyber security assessment enables corporations to communicate these risks to their stakeholders and to t essential action to eliminate them.  

Among many cyber security evaluation methodologies, the National Institute of Standards and Technology cybersecurity framework is a proven and structured approach. ISO 27001:2013 standard is another popular cybersecurity risk assessment framework. However, every organisation can develop its own customised risk assessment framework and methodology, regardless of the risk evaluation approach, the ultimate goal will be the same. 

ISO 27001: 2013 is the international standard that offers specifications for the best practices and approaches to information security risk management that handles people, procedures, and technology. The framework emphasises crucial steps discussed below. 

Specify The Scope of The Risk Assessment 

Cybersecurity assessment starts by determining what is in the scope of the evaluation. It could be the whole enterprise, but this is usually an oversized assignment, so it is better to be a department, site, or a particular aspect of the enterprise, such as a payment system or a web structure. It is crucial to have the complete backing of all stakeholders whose activities are within the scope of the assessment as their input will be essential to understanding which assets and processes are the most important, identifying risks, assessing impacts, and defining risk tolerance levels.

Identify Assets, Threats, and Potential Consequences 

You can’t ensure the security of something you don’t know; therefore, it is essential to create a list of physical and logical assets that fit well within the scope of risk assessment. While specifying assets, you must include not only the organisation’s crown jewels ) critical assets, which could be the foremost target of threat actors, but also the systems or modules that hackers would like to control, like communication systems or picture archives. 

Besides the threats, you must determine the methods and tactics that cyber attackers can potentially use to harm your organisational assets. It might be a complex task, so it is better to get help from a trusted threat library that can provide you with high-quality and authentic information on cyber threats. In addition, it is crucial to understand the consequences after a cyber attack occurs; it will help you to recognise the type of protection measures you need to implement. 

Analyse Risks And Determine Potential Impact 

In this phase, you need to determine the possibility of the risk scenarios you included in your list and their impact on your business or organisation if they did happen.  In a cybersecurity risk evaluation– the probability that a specific threat is capable of exploiting a given defenselessness– should be determined based on the discoverability, exploitability, and reproducibility of threats and vulnerabilities rather than historical occurrences.