Know Where You Stand: Building a Cyber-Solid Foundation

Your company probably already has clearly defined policies for things like paid time off, but does it have a policy that sets expectations for the use of company data and technology resources? Cyber-attacks are far less likely to occur if there is a cyber-strong foundation that shapes your organization with policies, procedures, and plans designed to support a culture of cybersecurity.

Know how your cybersecurity foundation stands

How confident are you that your company has a truly cyber-strong foundation? By answering four key questions from this free cybersecurity assessment, you can quickly see if your organization has a strong cybersecurity foundation:

• Has a single business leader been specified and owns the responsibility and accountability for your organization’s cybersecurity?
• Are there are written rules on how your employees are expected to use company technology devices and data?
• Does your organization conduct regular cybersecurity checkups and receive recommendations on improving its cybersecurity posture?
• Is there is a written plan of action should your company experience a breach or cybersecurity incident?

Your company should know how to create cybersecurity policies, procedures, and plans that set a clear and robust baseline for employee behavior and training. The foundation for each company looks different, but oftentimes there are expectations around personal devices, email and communication, reporting an incident, or anything relevant to your organization.

Tools for a cyber-strong foundation

• Having a cyber-strong foundation is another one of Defendify’s three key layers of cybersecurity. Here are a few tools to build a foundation of policies, plans, and procedures:

• Cybersecurity Assessment Tool: The Defendify Cybersecurity Health Checkup provides the insight you need, taking you through simple questions that map to key security frameworks, like NIST and CIS, to complete a straightforward cybersecurity assessment of your data, storage, systems, physical security controls, policies, and procedures. Defendify provides a detailed report with recommendations for improvement and grading in key areas to help you understand and strengthen your cybersecurity posture. It is a useful tool to meet regulatory compliance, and comes free with the Defendify Essentials Package.
• Technology & Data Use Policy Builder: Defendify helps you build fundamental guidelines around information security that can enable you to communicate expectations to employees and align security objectives with your legal and compliance goals.
• Incident Response Plan Builder: This tool helps you to build a comprehensive plan to how you should respond in the case of a data security incident – including what steps need to be taken, when they need to happen, and who takes responsibility for what.
• Ethical Hacking: White Hat, or Ethical Hackers will test existing data security boundaries to simulate a real cyberattack. These hackers attempt to gain access and exploit security holes through measured hacking activities and manual technology infiltration. These exercises are critical in proactively uncovering deep weaknesses and potential threats while verifying and determining the extent of known vulnerabilities.

More on Cyber Awareness

Can you check all of the cybersecurity boxes? See where you stand with this quick cybersecurity assessment. Understanding your overall cybersecurity health will help you build a cyber-solid foundation.