5 Crucial Elements of an Effective Cybersecurity Plan
Companies need to be protected from growing cyberattacks. These five crucial elements of an effective cybersecurity plan can help businesses of all sizes build a defense against cybercrime. A common misunderstanding is that cybercriminals only target large organizations because they can make more money. However, small businesses account for 43% of all cyber attacks every year.
Over the next 5 years, cybercrime costs are predicted to grow by 23% each year. Do you have an effective cybersecurity plan in place?
Last year, there were 11,395 phishing attacks costing businesses a total of $12.3 million. Ransomware attacks grew by 41% in 2022 as well. The average cost of a data breach in the United States is $9.44 million. Successful companies don’t want to be part of these statistics. Instead of being one of 2,200 cyber attacks that happen each day, those with an effective cybersecurity plan can be one of the companies that block cyber attacks each day.
5 Crucial Elements of an Effective Cybersecurity Plan
1. Prioritization
The importance of cybersecurity cannot be overstated but the prioritization is so often understated. The best way to have an effective cybersecurity plan is to make sure everyone in the company sees it as a priority. Your plan should be intricate enough to defend against the worst kinds of cyberattacks and feasible enough to be implemented by all employees with a high level of importance and necessity.
2. Defense
The most common cybersecurity defense strategy is the five NIST functions: identify, protect, detect, respond, and recover. This includes penetration testing and other strategies that help identify the problem areas that need to be protected. Once defense programs have been put in place, it should be easy to detect, respond, and recover from any potential cyberattack.
3. Metrics
Metrics are necessary for monitoring the effectiveness of your cybersecurity plan. They can also be an indispensable tool for stakeholders. Metrics can show your business partners and investors your level of integrity and willingness to protect their assets as well as your own business. These metrics can include the number of defensive systems you have in place, how many potential cyberattacks you’ve prevented, or how much money you have saved based on the average amount cyberattacks can cost a business for example.
4. Automation
An efficient way to continue meeting your cybersecurity marks is to implement automation. This can help businesses be compliant and reduce the risk of cyber threats. Automation gives companies control, reliability, and scalability in their cybersecurity program.
5. Continuous Diagnostics
You should always be proactive and monitor the effectiveness of your security measures. The goal of continuous diagnostics is to continually defend your company. This is the process of redoing the five NIST functions over and over again to ensure your business is protected. An effective cybersecurity plan is one that works 24/7/365.
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