Compliance Standards

Business owners should know the answer to the question, how prepared is your business to face cyber threats? However, most do not. The National Institute of Standards and Technologys (NIST) cybersecurity framework is one of the most recognized structures for improving sensitive data security against todays cyber threats from all devices. Meant to be a voluntary framework for taking security measures to identify and minimize cybersecurity risks, the NIST framework has been used in a wide variety of industries. In this article, well break down why the NIST framework was created, how it is structured, and how it helps to create a robust cybersecurity risk-management strategy. The NIST framework can be daunting at first, particularly for smaller organizations that may not be sure how to leverage the framework to create actionable insights into gaps in their cybersecurity. The information provided in this article should prove as a helpful starting place for organizations wishing to get a brief introduction to the NIST framework, as well as highlight some of the key advantages that adopting the NIST framework brings to organizations of any size.

Data breaches are a major cyber risk that can instantaneously affect a companys bottom line in more ways than one which is why it is imperative to find comprehensive cyber security solutions to ensure that your business is safe. They can drive up costs via increased compliance-related fines and impact revenues due to the decrease in consumer trust in the organizations products or services as a result of the cyber attacks. If a data breach is large enough, it can cripple a companys critical infrastructure to the point that they cannot come back from. To combat these instances of cyber infrastructure threats, President Barack Obama signed Executive Order 13636 for Improving Critical Infrastructure Cybersecurity, on February 12, 2013. This Executive Order established a U.S. Policy that focuses on the enhancement of the Nations critical infrastructure through the maintenance of public and private cyber environments.