Cybersecurity has become a top priority for organizations to focus on. If your organization has poor network security, it can lead to vulnerabilities that result in cyberattacks and data breaches.
Cyberattacks and data breaches can have detrimental consequences for organizations, potentially costing them hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars.
Damaged business reputations, extended network downtime, compromised sensitive data, lost customers, and lost revenue are all potential consequences following a cyberattack or data breach.
To prevent these from occurring, it is essential to understand the steps involved in developing a cybersecurity strategy.
COEO understands how important cybersecurity is and has helped thousands of organizations improve their cybersecurity by helping them develop a cybersecurity strategy and providing network security solutions such as SASE.
We want you to understand the necessary steps to creating a cybersecurity strategy so you can determine whether these steps will help improve your network security.
By the end of this article, you will understand what a cybersecurity strategy is, the steps required to build a strategy, and whether these steps will enhance your cybersecurity.
What is a cybersecurity strategy?
Cybersecurity should be a top priority. A cybersecurity strategy is a high-level document to determine how organizations plan to secure their assets.
However, most cybersecurity strategies are only reliable for no more than 3-5 years as cybersecurity changes frequently.
Technology and cybersecurity are constantly evolving, so a cybersecurity strategy is not meant to have a long time horizon; it is meant to be a short to medium plan as to what you should be doing for your cybersecurity.
Implementing a cybersecurity strategy ensures that your network assets are better secured.
Cybersecurity strategy is proactive by design, more focused on preventing cyberattacks and data breaches from happening than reacting to them after they occur.
If you would like to speak with our team to learn more about network security or ask any questions you may have, you can schedule an appointment.
The 4 steps to build a cybersecurity strategy
Developing a cybersecurity strategy requires internal effort, but it is essential to protect your organization from cyberattacks and data breaches. The four steps to build a cybersecurity strategy include:
1. Understand the landscape of your network
Before building a cybersecurity strategy, it is essential to understand the overall landscape of your network. It can be difficult to determine how to secure the network if you do not understand the intricacies of the infrastructure.
Doing this will help you understand the types of cyberthreats that your network may be most vulnerable to, and which attacks may affect your organization the most severely.
In addition, it will be beneficial to understand any major network security issues your competitors may have experienced recently and what may have caused them.
2. Assess your cybersecurity
The next step is to test the framework of your cybersecurity. Evaluate all your technologies, from operational to IT.
Additionally, it is important to assess your security capabilities across dozens of categories, such as cybersecurity governance, security policies, security technologies, and incident response capabilities.
Your organization can use this cybersecurity framework assessment to determine where it needs improvement over the next 3-5 years.
For instance, if DDoS is a major threat to your organization after assessing its cybersecurity infrastructure, you should ensure that network security is improved.
If ransomware is your biggest security threat, improving security backup and recovery should be a top priority in building your cybersecurity strategy.
Wherever your cybersecurity is shown to be weak after assessing the framework, your organization should focus on it when creating your cybersecurity strategy.
3. Determine what can be done to improve cybersecurity
Once your cybersecurity has been assessed and you understand the landscape of your network, the next step is to determine what can be done to improve its vulnerabilities.
Because strengthening cybersecurity demands an investment of resources, your organization should carefully weigh its options to identify the approach that most effectively achieves its objectives.
Additionally, your organization could outsource all cybersecurity to a trusted provider or keep cybersecurity in-house.
4. Document your cybersecurity strategy
Once your plan is approved, it is time to begin documenting the strategy and putting it into action. Documenting and updating risk assessments, cybersecurity plans, policies, and guidelines should all be a part of this step.
During this step, it is important to identify what each person’s responsibilities and roles are, and what is required to achieve the strategic objectives of your cybersecurity strategy.
It is also important to update and make changes to your cybersecurity strategy to keep up with changing network trends.
Making sure employees understand the importance of cybersecurity and how the strategy drives necessary changes will encourage them to accept and support those changes, while also taking their roles and responsibilities in the strategy more seriously.
Is a cybersecurity strategy appropriate for your organization?
With cybersecurity becoming so important, any organization that relies on network connectivity must make cybersecurity a top priority. However, there are many ways to secure your network infrastructure so it is important to determine which cybersecurity strategy is most appropriate for your organization.
If your organization has experienced network security vulnerabilities caused by human error, it may be a good idea to implement a cybersecurity strategy that shows your employees the importance of reliable network security and the role they play in effective security.
However, if your organization does not have internal IT expertise to manage this, implementing a cybersecurity strategy may not be fully effective. In this situation, a better alternative might be investing in a SASE solution and outsourcing cybersecurity to a provider.
Determining whether a cybersecurity strategy is appropriate for your organization
Now you understand what a cybersecurity strategy is, the steps required to build one, and whether it is appropriate for your organization.
No organization can be successful with poor cybersecurity. Poor cybersecurity will result in network vulnerabilities, making it easier for malicious actors to penetrate the network, leading to cyberattacks and data breaches that cause detrimental consequences
Cyberattacks and data breaches often result in damaged business reputations, extended network downtime, lost customers, and lost revenue.
These results can be difficult to recover from, because cyberattacks and data breaches can cost organizations hundreds of thousands and even millions of dollars.
For this reason, it is important to understand the recommended steps to build a cybersecurity strategy so you can improve your organization’s security and prevent cyberattacks and data breaches from happening.
COEO understands how important cybersecurity is and has helped thousands of organizations improve their security by developing cybersecurity strategies and delivering solutions like SASE.
If you would like to speak with our team to learn more about network security or ask any questions you may have, you can schedule an appointment.
Now that you know what a cybersecurity strategy is and the steps to develop one, read this article to learn what a network security assessment is and whether it can help your organization:
