The age of digitalization and IoT has brought about significant changes in how the world operates. While digitalization existed before, in the post-pandemic world, it has witnessed an exponential rise as compared to earlier figures.
Statistics mark that cybercrime increased by 600% because of COVID-19.
While things have become easier and more streamlined now with the digital revolution, it has opened doors to a new problem – cybersecurity. The notoriety of data breaches can be seen in the fact that 95% of such events are a direct result of human error. With such extensive penetration of digitality, businesses need to understand the importance of cybersecurity assessment for their digital and internet-based applications and software in an attempt to mitigate the risks as much as possible.
The global workforce, to a large extent, has been forced to work remotely, causing an increased adoption of digital, online tools in their day-to-day life. According to Varonis, the secure percentage of a company’s files and folders is only 5% – which calls for a major overhaul in data security measures. We believe that it has become necessary today, more than ever, to ensure that the data environment at an organization remains secure and long-lasting.
Why is Security Assessment Needed?
When we asked people what data security meant to them, a majority pointed to installing anti-virus software solutions. Truth is, an anti-virus program does give your data some amount of a barrier against threats, but there is a huge problem in scaling it to cover the entire security needs of a company. Anti-virus programs are grossly inadequate for organizational deployment. Additionally, there are more threats to data in a company than just viruses. A broader perspective needs to be adopted to holistically address all pockets of vulnerability to be able to truly secure the data.
The hacking at Equifax back in 2017 is one of the scariest and costliest instances of data breach ever encountered – all because of vulnerabilities in their web framework. Hackers could easily extract the confidential information of over 148 million customers, leading to a loss of $400 million to the company. The fact that this event is fairly recent makes it all the more noteworthy – because the world today is even more exposed to security breaches due to the increased number of entryways into users’ data brought about by rapid digitalization.
What is Included in a Cloud Security Threat Assessment?
A detailed security assessment of a company’s cloud environment is usually completed in two steps. The first step involves a review, which gives the professionals an idea about the data set-up at your company. This stage involves gauging the security needs of your company’s cloud infrastructure and then developing a plan of action to address the vulnerabilities identified thus.
The second stage is deploying the latest security systems and assessing their effectiveness against an attack. Here is a detailed break-up of what a security risk assessment looks like:
Security Review
In the review stage, the IT professionals (in-house or hired) look at the data systems of your cloud ecosystem. The first step they perform is to check whether you have a security policy in place. If you do, they review it. If not, they set about creating a policy that works well with the needs of your company, such as data backup policies, password policies, update and security patch timelines, etc.
The review also involves listing down the digital assets of a company – hardware, software, applications, etc., so everything is visible in one place. This helps the team create comprehensive cybersecurity mechanisms.
The most important part of a security review is understanding the risks and vulnerabilities that could possibly lead to data compromise. Hanu’s Cloud Security Assessment evaluates organization’s cloud security posture based on industry best practices.
It helps organization to identify and mitigate security risks in 3 days, at no cost. It provides actionable insights into security misconfigurations in current Azure security posture and deviations from recommended cloud security architecture
Hanu’s Azure Security and Compliance Assessment Program is intended to evaluate the organization’s operational security strategy as they deploy sophisticated enterprise applications on Azure. It can also help you to build a secure cloud migration and operation strategy for your organization. This program includes
- Azure Security Posture Scorecard
- Compliance Audit (Benchmarks: CIS, HIPAA, NIST,
PCI DSS) - Application Vulnerabilities Check
- Infrastructure Configuration Gaps
- Executive Security Report
It is important to quantify the impact of each security issue identified as it puts things into perspective. When an organization is able to see the impact in terms of money or clients lost, devising a counterstrategy becomes more efficient.
Security Testing
Testing essentially measures the resilience of your cloud assets and resources when faced with an attack. It is a very important part of security assessments. IT professionals simulate the conditions of a cyber-attack, thereby helping pinpoint problem areas in the security posture of your cloud, in order to finetune them further.
Additionally, it is important to keep cybersecurity protocol updated with the latest digital weaponry.
What Problems Does Security Assessment Address?
Security assessments help businesses prepare better for an attack. In addition to giving an extra layer of protection to sensitive company data, these assessments solve the problem of lax data practices at a firm.
The security assessment exercise also sensitizes the employees on the importance of observing data policies stringently in order to ensure that it remains safe and protected.
Statistics say that damages occurring from cybercrime will hit a record high of $6 trillion by 2021 – and this is an annual figure. Needless to say, security assessment is an inevitable, imperative exercise that all businesses must incorporate into their regime. A quarterly assessment regularly can help your businesses stay protected. Thus, assess your business today at ZERO cost, with Hanu’s Security Assessment to look for vulnerabilities to such attacks and prevent them by safeguarding your security and compliance infrastructure.
