Protect Your Business: A Proactive Approach to Cybersecurity with Rouse Consulting Group

In today’s world, the number of cybersecurity threats continues to increase, with over a billion malware programs in existence and approximately 560,000 new malware pieces being detected daily. Meanwhile, regulations such as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) are constantly evolving, meaning that even the slightest security breach can have severe consequences for your organization, including adverse publicity, hefty fines, and a loss of brand trust.

Rouse Consulting Group can help you implement a proactive cybersecurity approach that protects your business on all fronts in a dynamic, complex, and ever-evolving threat landscape. We do this by understanding your organization, including its systems, applications, and user base, identifying vulnerabilities, and addressing security risks before an attack ever occurs. In this article, we will delve into how to do just that with a dedicated technology partner by your side.

Identify and Evaluate Risks for Assets That Could Be Affected by Cyberattacks

A proactive approach to cybersecurity involves managing and mitigating risk to your company’s critical assets. The easiest way to achieve this mission and ensure that any shortfalls in your IT infrastructure are appropriately addressed is to conduct a comprehensive risk assessment. To ensure a smooth risk assessment within your organization, here are a few basic steps to follow:

  • Identify and Prioritize Assets: Determine which valuable assets attackers may target and define the scope of the assessment.

  • Identify Threats: Understand what could cause harm to your organization, such as hardware failure, natural disasters, human error, and more.

  • Identify Vulnerabilities: Identify any vulnerabilities that could be exploited to breach security and cause harm or steal data from your organization.

  • Analyze Controls: Identify any controls in place to mitigate or eliminate the possibility of a cyber threat, and classify them as preventative or detective.

  • Calculate the Likelihood of an Attack: Determine the likelihood of a given attack by considering the current control environment your organization has in place.

  • Develop a Risk Assessment Report: Create a risk management report that supports management in decision-making on cybersecurity budget, policies, and procedures.

Invest in Preventative Cybersecurity Measures

There is not a single cybersecurity policy that can sufficiently address your business’s needs, just as there is no security product that can completely encompass all your organization’s vulnerabilities. Instead, it’s time to invest in a multi-layered, integrated cybersecurity strategy that covers many core areas of cybersecurity, including network security, cloud security, application security, Internet of Things (IoT) security, and more. To lay the foundation for a solid cybersecurity strategy, it’s essential to:

  • Understand the risks your organization faces daily.

  • Establish protective monitoring to detect and mitigate threats.

  • Prepare secure data backups that keep your business running during an attack.

  • Revisit your cybersecurity strategy as your organization changes and evolves.

Never Underestimate the Power of Cybersecurity Training

A proactive approach to cybersecurity begins with awareness. Proper training can leave employees less vulnerable to releasing cyberattacks onto your organization. Diverting resources into formal cybersecurity training could very well mean the difference between the success and failure of your business. To prioritize cybersecurity training for your employees, we recommend the following:

  • Getting executive buy-in.
  • Starting training early and often.
  • Making the security and health of your organization an ongoing team effort.

Stop Relying on Reactive Cybersecurity Measures Alone to Protect Your Business

If your company’s current cybersecurity strategy is limited to firewalls, antivirus or anti-malware software, ad blockers, and other measures put in place to spot the tell-tale signs of a security breach, there’s a good chance that you already have a reactive cybersecurity strategy in place.

Unfortunately, reactive cybersecurity measures on their own are not enough to comprise.