Customer demands are evolving each day. New service models and technologies are pushing conventional service providers from their comfort zones. These innovations are redefining industries from the IT to the financial sector.
Similarly, cyber threats are more severe than ever, ranging from fraud, hacktivism, ransomware, DDoS, business email compromises, nation-state risks, jihadist cybercrimes, and many others.
What can save your organization from these risks while allowing you to stay ahead of technology? Have you tried a third-party cybersecurity firm? This could be your ideal solution.
How Can a Cybersecurity Firm Help?
Third-party Cybersecurity services provide independent advice on business and information security. They can help you in the following areas:
- Security Risk Management
- Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity
- Third-party Security Assessment
- IT Security and Regulatory Compliance
- Vulnerability Assessment and Penetration Testing
- Threat Intelligence and Monitoring
- Data Protection and Privacy
- Security Incident Management
- Secure Development
A third-party cybersecurity company identifies and explores your IT security weaknesses. They perform vulnerability assessment and penetration tests so they can give informed advice on how to improve vulnerability management. Along with your technology team, the service provider examines IT security incidents and gives the way forward. When you outsource certified help in cybersecurity, the provider takes 100% responsibility for timely and qualitative deliverables during customer engagement. The hired service comes with the highest level of maturity and ability to work independently in any dealing.
Their evaluations allow your organization to identify and stay alert to security threats which can happen internally or externally. If left unattended, these security hazards can cause adverse harm to your organization - for instance, damaging your reputation, massive financial impacts, loss of customer trust, and so on. By deploying a third-party assessor, you’ll benefit from the analysis process and possibly save your company. However, you have to sit down with the consultant firm to clarify their duties in the assessment. They must be cooperative to guarantee a fruitful assessment.
What is a Cybersecurity Evaluation?
Cybersecurity evaluation/assessment/review is a process whereby the potential of an organization’s security control over the information system is examined. If you want to know the strengths and weaknesses of your company’s information system, request a cybersecurity review from a third-party service provider. Apart from receiving guidelines on how to mitigate security breaches, you’ll also receive impartial outcomes of your cybersecurity status.
When choosing managed services for cybersecurity review, make sure that they are reliable, confidential, and accessible throughout the evaluation. It is imperative for your enterprise to perform an internal audit before engaging a third-party assessor.
The benefits of outsourcing a third-party cybersecurity assessment can be summarized as follows:
1. Minimizing the Risks Associated with Third-party Vendors
Third-party vendors are incredibly important in today’s business environment. They can help you organize specific operations that only experts can do or which may be too expensive to do yourself. For instance, they can provide HR support services, implement payroll services, provide technological consulting, and help with sales. Yes, third-party vendors may save you time and costs but there are risks associated with their services. Cybersecurity issues are among those risks.
It’s unfortunate that some organizations ignore the risks associated by third-party vendors. They can produce high risks that might slip in when you least expect. To ensure your business is safe, you need a vendor assessment plan. This is where an external cybersecurity consultation comes in. A safety-conscious plan from a cybersecurity company would be a great start. The plan should be an ally in your pursuit of business goals.
2. Getting Ready for GDPR
Cybersecurity controls allow you to comply with the General Data Protection Regulation. To organize for GDPR, your company must perform an extensive evaluation and exercise due diligence of the data protection programs and security procedures. Note that GDPR is technologically neutral and may not give much advice on these subject matters.
While it aims at taking theoretical privacy into practice, the responsibility of attaining it lies in the processor of sensitive information. Failure to comply with the regulatory measures can lead to hefty fines. Before implementing any security feature, you must ensure that they are in line with the NIST provisions. This way, your company achieves its privacy and safety objectives for running services and programs as required by law.
3. Backup and Recovery
Studies show that one organization suffers a ransomware attack every 40 seconds. A lot of cybercrimes are flocking the internet, leaving businesses and online entrepreneurs shocked. The good news is that you don’t have to be worried all the time if you partner with a cybersecurity firm. As long as your organization’s disaster recovery is intact, and you have a backup plan in place, cyber attacks will be the least of your worries. A reliable backup and recovery plan covers a variety of breaches, making it easier for your company to recover stolen data in case of an attack.
Truth be told, your internal IT department cannot mitigate every cloud-based threat. Remember that your technical team can only do so much when it comes to security risks emanating from user errors, web browsers, or social engineering. Cybersecurity becomes the responsibility of every stakeholder in your organization and only a highly qualified professional can educate them about it. Incidences where employees click malicious links or use weak passwords are rampant. These are some of the areas that cybercriminals target. Your employees need to know about these weak points. Who better than cybersecurity experts to teach them?
4. Acquiring Cyber Liability Insurance
Cyber liability insurance protects your company from potential losses caused by internet-based risks. There is so much vulnerability related to the transfer of data in the cloud and you must know how to evade it. Cyber liability insurance or cybersecurity insurance offsets any expense that may be incurred after a security breach. Here’s what it covers:
- Costs related to third-party and first-party claims
- Costs related to forensic investigations that determine the extent of a breach
- Network downtime or business disruption losses
- Expenses of recovering lost data
- Crisis management costs
- Costs incurred as a result of financial extortion or ransomware
- Monitoring credit cards for employees who suffered a data breach
- Legal expenses involved in settling lawsuits where personal data has leaked
As you can see, getting a policy to cover cyber liability is a smart move. If you are looking for suggestions on the best insurance provider, a third-party cybersecurity provider would be the best option to turn to.
5. The Best Precautionary Measure
Can you imagine if your business was attacked by an experienced hacker? The hacker could steal sensitive information like your clients’ SSNs. What if your site fails and clients don’t have a way to send their payments? Without sales, it is almost impossible for a business to remain viable.
Having the right security measures, whether there’s an emergency or not, would minimize the effects of a cyber attack. Cybersecurity is not just a thing for large companies – EVERY business that takes its activities online requires this precautionary measure.
In Summary
Given that hackers have improved the techniques of penetrating computer systems, you need more than antivirus software in your office network to stay protected. The cost of hiring a cybersecurity consultant is much more cost effective than dealing with the mess caused by most cybercrimes. There is so much damage that will be left to contain in the event of an online attack.
Have you considered hiring an expert firm or investing in cybersecurity insurance? If not, what are you waiting for? You will save your company from financial risks and much more.
