With the staggering increase in cybercrime, more individuals and organizations are starting to understand the threat that a cybersecurity breach poses to their critical data. A cyber-attack on the defense system of an organization can result in financial loss, identity theft and reputational damage. Cybersecurity risk assessment tools are crucial in helping to mitigate the activities of malicious actors.
Any organization that fails to safeguard its network systems against a cybersecurity breach may well be on its way out of business. However, all over the world, both individual and corporate enterprises are waking up to the harsh reality of cybercrime. It’s estimated that $6 trillion dollars will be spent globally on cybersecurity by 2021.
Cybersecurity risk assessment is essential to winning the battle against data infiltration. Read on to learn about the types of technology and software tools that can help you perform a cybersecurity risk self-assessment.
What is Cyber Risk Assessment?
Risk assessment is the systematic process of identifying hazards and examining any associated risks within a workplace, then implementing reasonable control measures to remove or reduce them.
Therefore, the goal of cyber risk assessment is to identify security threats on an organization’s system, evaluate these threats, and implement measures that will help mitigate such threats. Cyber risk assessment gives an organization insight into the state of its security and helps the organization to make informed decisions.
Because of the advancement in modern technology and evolution of cybercriminals, organizations have had to create new measures that weren’t available years ago to counter cyber-attacks. These measures include cybersecurity risk assessment tools which help to achieve the aim of cyber risk assessment.
Why Do You Need to Perform a Cyber Risk Assessment?
There are several reasons why you need to perform a cyber risk assessment. Let’s examine a few of them:
- Cuts down unnecessary cost: Performing cyber risk assessment means you’re working to mitigate potential threats which would save your organization a lot of cost in the future.
- Provides a template for future assessments: Cyber risk assessment isn’t meant to be a once-and-for-all project. By doing a good job on the first one, you create a template that can be utilized in the event of job turnover.
- Provides awareness of where your organization stands: Knowing where lapses are in your cybersecurity setup helps you know where to invest and concentrate your efforts.
- Improves communication: An effective cybersecurity assessment requires input from different departments and stakeholders, this can help bring various departments closer and enhance communication.
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Top 3 Cybersecurity Assessment Tools
There are several cybersecurity tools that can be used for cybersecurity assessment today. However, below are the top three cybersecurity risk assessment tools.
1. Vulnerability Assessment Tools
Vulnerability assessment is a methodical approach to review security weaknesses in an operating system. It calculates if the system is susceptible to any known vulnerabilities, how severe it is, and recommends how to mitigate it, if and whenever needed.
Types of Vulnerability Assessment Tools are:
- Web Application Scanners: These tools provide a layer of protection for organizations. They can scan web-based applications for possible loopholes to prevent malicious elements from gaining access to corporate data.
- Protocol Scanners: These tools counter-attack the activities of hackers who seek to disrupt your security controls by identifying your network hosts and IP addresses and targeting it in hopes of identifying vulnerable spots.
- Network Scanners: Given how sophisticated hackers are getting daily, it’s possible for them to operate unnoticed. These tools allow you to scan your network in search of hidden devices by scanning a range of IP addresses.
Vulnerability assessments have a four-step process that every security system should undergo, these steps include:
- Vulnerability Identification: The objective of this step is to test all applications, servers, and systems by scanning them manually or with automated tools to determine their security health.
- Vulnerability Analysis: This step seeks to get to the heart of the problem by discovering the root cause of the susceptibilities identified in step one.
- Risk Assessment: At this level, security analysts are required to give rank or score to indicate how severe a system is based on criteria such as: which systems are affected, what data is at risk, the severity of an attack, etc.
- Remediation: At this stage, the security analysts are tasked with finding the most effective path to a solution to each vulnerability.
Vulnerability assessments should be a periodical exercise for it to be effective as it also fosters operation between security, operations, and development teams.
2. Vendor-provided Tools
Because of the high cost of running cybersecurity assessment tools, vendor-provided tools provide a means for organizations to have their own cybersecurity assessment which comes at a reduced cost.
Therefore, it’s important for organizations to check back with the vendors who provide them their IT components to know if they have a tool to scan their products.
Vendor-provided tools give you inexpensive cybersecurity assessment tools that are compatible with your cybersecurity system.
3. Breach and Attack Simulation Tool (BAS)
In an attempt to ensure all possible leakages have been blocked, it’s best for organizations to carry out a mock test to guarantee the safety of their systems.
The Breach and Attack Simulation Tool (BAS) is used by having a third-party attempt to gain unauthorized access to sensitive data by bypassing security protocols to ensure that deficiencies within the security control are found and corrected.
The BAS is a type of penetration tool. Penetration tools are set up to continuously attack your system using automated methods informed by the latest threats intelligence methods.
Closing Thoughts
Considering the increasing number of cyber-attacks that occur daily, your organization should not be left defenseless. Putting in place a cybersecurity assessment tool should be a priority.
Although there are several cybersecurity companies offering various cyber risk assessment tools, finding one that understands your situation and provides a compatible assessment tool can be quite tedious. RSI Security offers professional IT services including cybersecurity risk assessment tools. We will work with you to understand your needs and provide reliable and scalable vulnerability assessment so you don’t have to worry about every incoming threat seeking access to your valuable data.
Our cybersecurity team also offers a cyber risk report which includes the following:
- Network Vulnerability: this report reveals the state of your website, hardware, and sensitive data, and how vulnerable they are to malicious elements.
- Web Vulnerability: this report reveals in which area your website technology is lagging behind compared to the latest technology.
- Dark Web Scan: this report reveals potentially compromising information about you in the dark web.
Ready to start using our unique cybersecurity assessment tools? Send us a message to get in touch with our experts.
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