Why Conducting Cyber Risk Assessments Is Critical for 21st-Century Businesses

Cybercrime is on the rise around the world, with thousands of cybersecurity breaches occurring each day. In 2020, the FBI reported that its Cyber Division was receiving as many as 4,000 complaints about cyberattacks per day (MonsterCloud, 2020).

To help prevent such attacks and associated financial losses, many companies and their IT teams conduct cyber risk assessments. Cyber risk assessments are a well-proven way to protect organizations’ networks and data. Read on to learn why cyber risk assessments should be an important part of business strategy.

What Are Cyber Risk Assessments?

Cyber risk assessment is the process of identifying, analyzing, and evaluating the risk associated with an organization’s current cybersecurity setup (IT Governance, 2017). A cyber risk assessment aims to properly evaluate the security of a company’s network, systems, and sensitive data, highlighting any existing weak points within the security framework.

In addition, cyber risk assessments highlight which of an organization’s assets are most at risk of being successfully targeted by malicious hackers and cybercriminals. These assets may include:

◉ Hardware

◉ Systems

◉ Devices, such as laptops

◉ Customer data

◉ Intellectual property

Understanding the Importance of Cyber Risk Assessments

Protecting networks, data, and sensitive information is vital to the success of an organization. Regularly conducting risk assessments can help mitigate the risk of costly cyberattacks. While cyber risk assessments alone aren’t a complete defense against cyberattacks, as cybercrime is an ongoing battle, conducting risk assessments can help increase a company’s overall security.

Security incidents and data breaches can be quite costly for companies to handle. If you want to safeguard your company and ultimately save money over the long term, regularly conducting cybersecurity risk assessments should be an important element of your overall business strategy.

How Do Cyber Risk Assessments Benefit Organizations?

Given the number of cyberattacks that happen daily, protecting sensitive organizational data is a necessity. Conducting cyber risk assessments offers a plethora of benefits for companies. Some of the top benefits that cyber risk assessments provide for organizations include:

◉ Systematic and efficient identification of existing cybersecurity vulnerabilities

◉ An understanding of the organization’s current ability to combat existing security threats

◉ The creation of an actionable, step-by-step guide for improving the organization’s security system and preventing malicious hacks

Read More: EC-Council Certified Chief Information Security Officer (CCISO)

Source: eccouncil.org