How to build a cybersecurity plan: A guide for SMEs
By Gareth Rees; Regional Executive, The Missing Link
Today, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are confronted with an unprecedented level of cyber risk and threats. Malicious actors do not discriminate based on entity size, but instead focus upon organizational vulnerability and susceptibility.
There is an increasingly blurred line between the physical and digital worlds, businesses of all sizes must prioritise cybersecurity to protect their assets. There are many challenges ahead for businesses to ensure they protect their reputations, continue to grow, and avoid the wrath of regulators and governing bodies.
Therefore, it is imperative to build and implement a comprehensive cybersecurity plan, but how do businesses achieve this and tackle the evolving threat head-on?
How to build a cybersecurity plan
Take a step-by-step approach to build your solid plan:
Assess your current security situation
It’s best to start by commissioning a comprehensive cyber security risk assessment. This will allow you to identify and evaluate your critical assets, customer data, financial records, IP, and operational systems.; helping balance the investment in controls appropriate to the actual risks.
Security Controls Reviews and Security Maturity Assessments can help to provide an understanding of your current control posture and provide recommendations on how to best use the technology you already have in place, as well as provide a solid roadmap for how to maximise your cybersecurity budget and clarify the need for investment.
Use vulnerability scanners, external attack surface assessments, and plan penetration tests to help determine your current posture regarding vulnerabilities, exposures and security alerting tools. If you find any gaps or weaknesses document them, plan and implement timely remediations to establish stronger cybersecurity baselines.
Define your objectives
You need to establish clear security objectives to align with your business goals, so you can prioritise assets based on value and risk exposure. For example, are you correctly safeguarding intellectual property, or adequately protecting customer data? Each objective must follow the SMART principles, being specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time bound.
Develop security procedures and policies
As you create robust security policies, you will show how your company plans to protect its assets. Such policies could include data classification and handling procedures, acceptable use policies, incident response protocols, and training guidelines. You should tailor each policy to the unique requirements of your company to ensure that they are always practical and enforceable. Don’t forget to review these policies regularly and adapt them as new threats arise.
Put in place multi-layered security measures
The best cybersecurity plans have multiple layers of defence. You might start by securing your perimeter with firewalls, intrusion prevention, and detection systems. You should also have endpoint protection on all your devices, to include traditional anti-virus capability but also EDR, Endpoint Detection and Response capability. Encrypt sensitive data at rest and in transit so it is safe from unauthorised access and regularly patch or update systems to close vulnerabilities.
You might even consider advanced solutions like Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) tools, as these will give you real-time monitoring and threat detection from a range of your security tools and log sources, not just your endpoints. Two factor authentication (2FA) or Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) provides a substantial bang for buck approach when adding another layer of security to your network
Craft an instant response plan
A detailed cybersecurity response plan will outline the steps to take in the event of a cyber-attack. This plan should have multiple steps, such as:
- Detection of security incidents
- Incident classification
- Key contact information for stakeholders
- Responsibilities and roles of various team members
- Containing or mitigating the incident, preventing further damage
- Eradicating the root cause of the breach
- Recovering systems and data to normal operational levels
- Lessons learned, reviewing the incident, so that you can improve future efforts
Conduct regular training sessions and tabletop exercises so everyone understands what they need to do. If you want to go further and pressure test your teams, processes, and technologies to ensure they can stand-up to a real-world incident, consider instigating Red Team Attack Simulations or Low-Intensity Assumed Breach exercises to provide valuable confidence and lessons learned ahead of real security events.
Train your people
Unfortunately, human error is one of the most common causes of a data breach. Don’t let one of your staff members be the weakest link and educate everyone about common cyber threats. Then, have regular training sessions where you simulate an attack to test their awareness or readiness.
Go further and ensure that cybersecurity training is embedded within the culture of your organisation so that everyone considers the cybersecurity of the organisation, their responsibility. Consider utilising best-in-class cybersecurity awareness tools and practices or engaging managed security service providers to help source tools and create cybersecurity aware programs to create and embed the culture.
Be aware of third-party risks
Many businesses rely on third party partners and vendors to help them with daily operations, but this introduces an additional risk. So, develop third-party risk management strategies with strong contractual agreements that cover security requirements, and consider adopting tools to help you monitor supplier performance.
Regularly assess the situation to ensure that the third-party company views cybersecurity as a high priority and have regular and open dialogue with your partners to ensure the security health of your entire supplier ecosystem.
Monitor and review
Remember that cybersecurity is not a one-time effort but requires ongoing monitoring and adjustment. There are plenty of monitoring tools to help you detect unusual activity and you can conduct a regular security audit to evaluate their effectiveness. Review the plan periodically and update it to address new threats and vulnerabilities.
Reach out to external experts
Often, an SME will lack the in-house expertise needed to manage a cybersecurity plan effectively. So, if you’re in this situation, it’s a good idea to partner with an external consultant or managed security service provider. These are experts that can offer you insights into the latest threats, conduct advanced security assessments, provide access to new security tools that are optimal for your environment, or provide you with expert round-the-clock monitoring, detection, and response capability.
Always be learning
It can certainly be complex to build a cybersecurity plan when you have to tailor it to your company’s unique needs. So, consider enlisting the support of HLB Global, your trusted partner with extensive expertise in cybersecurity.
We can offer you tailored solutions, like technology advice and risk assurance, as we help you to navigate the complexities of this new world.
HLB Global will also ensure that you remain compliant with evolving regulations, so contact us today for a consultation. We’ll help you to build a comprehensive and effective cybersecurity plan that will always align with your business goals.
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