Since cybercrime is on the rise and bad actors are always looking for new targets, companies are at risk because of security gaps in their technology. We highly recommend a third-party risk assessment to help you identify your actual security posture and help you create an action plan to reduce your risk profile. There are 4 components to the risk assessment.
A Risk Assessment
A risk assessment includes creating an asset inventory, scanning that inventory for security gaps, examining existing policies, and creating a comprehensive report that can be used for developing a plan of action for prioritizing the next steps for closing the security gaps discovered during the scan.
Asset Inventory
The first step of a risk assessment is to run a scan on the network to see what devices are plugged into it. In many instances, we find that there are devices plugged into the network that were previously unknown.
The Scan
The next step is to scan the network for software vulnerabilities that vendors have published. Once a flaw is found it is cataloged and the scan continues.
For an organization that has 10 to 25 servers and workstations, switches, routers, etc. A scan can find between 5,000 – 7,000 vulnerabilities on the network.
Policies
Cyber security policies regulate all aspects of digital data exchange, including the Internet, data privacy, and network usage – as well as cyber defense. The assessment will review the policies in place and recommend improvements if needed.
Reporting
Any number of reports are available, but it is often helpful to focus only on the critical vulnerabilities that can be exploited over the network. A report like this can provide an administrator with a subset of exploits to be addressed.
A third-party risk assessment is important for improving security posture and reducing risk profile. Assessments should be run on a regular basis to guide your efforts to improve security on daily basis.
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