Preparing your organization to face ever-evolving cyber challenges is becoming increasingly relevant in this day and age.
It is important to use every resource available to help your team gain confidence, test your current security practices, assess risks, simulate real-life cyber attacks, and boost your overall cyber resilience.
This is what cyber preparedness management helps organizations take care of, and this article will dive deep into this topic and talk about different aspects of preparing your enterprise for potential threats and attacks.
What Does Cyber Preparedness Mean?
Cyber preparedness refers to the practice of ensuring that an organization has developed its ability to prevent, mitigate, and recover from a cyber incident that might occur.
It is important to note that this strategy is a company-wide collaborative effort and it doesn’t fall only under the responsibility of the security team. That’s why management must make sure that the whole team has access to the appropriate training materials and is ready to tackle cybersecurity challenges.
Why Is Cyber Preparedness Management Important for Your Organization?
Putting together a proper cyber preparedness plan can be vital for organizations in this day and age.
Successfully launched and executed cyber attacks potentially mean theft of your company’s sensitive information, financial loss, and reputation damage. Therefore, it is essential to take proper measures and avoid these consequences in times of crises.
This is why taking care of your organization’s cyber preparedness management is important. It ensures safety of the overall organization and helps your team boost cyber resilience.
When organizations start thinking about their cyber preparedness management, it is important for them to take every different angle into consideration. Therefore, we can divide the problem into four main categories:
Expansion of New Technologies
New solutions and products are being launched every single day. However, trying out all of those solutions and implementing them to see which one works the best can be a costly approach.
Instead, we need to understand which of those solutions are legit by trying them out in a simulated environment. That way, your production won’t be interrupted, and you will have more clarity on which new products work the best for your specific case.
Responding to Digital Threats
Statistics show that cyber threats and attacks are more common than ever. They get increasingly sophisticated every time, and it is important for organizations to be ready to face these challenges.
Having a proper cyber preparedness management plan will ensure that your team members are ready to tackle these threats and improve the organization’s overall security posture.
Meet Regulatory Requirements
Another essential factor in ensuring your organization’s cyber preparedness is meeting compliance and regulatory requirements that local governments put in place. Not investing your time in compliance may result in huge fines and penalties.
Skills Management
Currently, there is a massive skills gap in the field of cybersecurity, increasing the chances for attackers to be successful with their attempts.
Addressing this issue and making sure that your employees are ready to face basic cyber threats and attacks will improve your security posture and boost overall cyber resilience.
How Does Cyber Preparedness Management Apply to the NIST Cybersecurity Framework?
The NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology) cybersecurity framework helps organizations manage, understand, and reduce their cybersecurity risks and protect data.
This voluntary yet important framework gives your business different steps to achieve best practices and helps you decide where to invest your resources to ensure your strong cybersecurity posture.
According to the Federal Trade Commission, there are five different areas where you can put the NIST cybersecurity framework into action:
Identify
Make sure to have a list of every single equipment, software, and data you use. This includes laptops, smartphones, and other devices that your employees have from work.
Your company’s cybersecurity policy must cover a detailed explanation of roles and responsibilities for employees with access to sensitive data, as well as the steps to take to protect against potential attacks.
Protect
In this area, you must improve your efforts to guarantee better protection against potential threats. Make sure to have control over log-ins to your networks and device usage. It is also recommended that security software be used to protect and encrypt sensitive data.
Besides, you should regularly update your organization’s security software and conduct proper training for everyone who uses different devices and networks to teach them about the basics of cybersecurity.
Detect
Always be ready to monitor your devices and check if there is any unauthorized personnel access and software. All of these unusual activities must be investigated by your staff.
To ensure your organization’s security, you must check your network for unauthorized users or connections trying to get in as well.
Respond
Another important aspect of cyber preparedness is having a proper plan for notifying customers and other stakeholders that their data might be at risk.
At the same time, you must report the attack to law enforcement and other authorities while investigating and containing an attack. Your cybersecurity policy and plan must be updated as well.
After finalizing this type of plan, it is important to test it regularly and make sure it is compatible with the latest trends.
Recover
Have a recovery plan after the attack. Make sure to repair and restore all the equipment of your network that was affected, and keep your team members, customers, and other stakeholders informed about the situation and recovery activities.
How Can Cyber Range Help?
Cyber range is a technology that helps organizations train cybersecurity professionals and test their incident response capabilities in a simulated environment.
They include a simulated network infrastructure, tools, and systems to help organizations prepare and experience different types of cyber threats or attacks. Aim is to provide a safe environment and assist staff in gaining hands-on cyber skills through different exercises.
Generally, cyber ranges have the ability to help organizations with all aspects of cyber preparedness management – it is a useful tool for testing new technologies, understanding how to respond to cyber threats, meeting regulatory requirements, and addressing skills gaps within an organization.
At the same time, organizations can use cyber range technology to follow the NIST framework as well. Through various realistic cybersecurity exercises, your employees can learn and experience how to identify, protect, detect, respond, and recover from a cyber attack.
CybExer Technologies – Leading the Way to Cyber Preparedness
As cybersecurity is becoming increasingly challenging for organizations worldwide, investing your resources into developing your cyber preparedness management efforts cannot be understated.
One of the most effective ways to achieve that is to utilize the power of cyber ranges and boost your organization’s cyber resilience through different realistic exercises it offers.
At CybExer, we have been at the forefront of shaping the cybersecurity industry since 2016. We are committed to providing advanced Cyber Range technology and assisting our partners improve their security posture.
Our platform offers a wide range of advanced cyber security training modules designed to enhance your cyber capabilities. If you’d like to learn more about our offering, schedule a call with our cyber range experts to discuss your organization’s needs.
