The Importance of Cybersecurity Auditing
The notion of being audited is often associated with negative connotations. It can even be a little scary. Let’s face it, no one wants to get a letter from their country’s tax enforcement division that they are being audited. Whenever there is some type of governmental scandal, the first course of action is to conduct an audit and find evidence of wrongdoing or misconduct. Such is the reputation of audits.?
The Benefits of General Auditing?
Auditing in general, however, should not be viewed as a means of proving one’s innocence. In fact, businesses regularly perform voluntary audits because it can be an effective tool when used correctly. Some of the general benefits of auditing include:?
According to Gartner, 88% of Boards of Directors view cybersecurity as a risk. It is an even greater risk for SMBs that cannot as easily recover from the devastation of an attack. As a result, cybersecurity auditing has now become a regular voluntary means to provide insights into an organization’s security responsibilities and efforts. Auditing is being used to reduce risk because security risks are bad for business.??
The Big Spend in IT and Cybersecurity?
According to Gartner, worldwide IT spending is projected to reach $4.5 trillion in 2023. That is a lot of money. Does the world need to spend that much? Maybe it isn’t enough. We don’t know without some means of discovery and analysis. When it comes to cybersecurity, we often hear companies striving to achieve zero-trust security across their organizations. A McKinney survey showed that the world spent $150 billion on cybersecurity in 2021. Obviously, it wasn’t enough when we consider the proliferation of cyberattacks that year. And while global corporations can throw large amounts of money at recruiting top cybersecurity talent and obtaining the latest best-of-breed security controls, there is a point of diminishing returns at some point. And then there is the challenge for SMBs that don’t have the resources to match corporate security efforts yet must still comply with government and industry regulations to meet their due of care responsibility when it comes to securing the sensitive information of third parties. All of this is why voluntary cybersecurity auditing can pay big dividends.??
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All Businesses Have Security Weaknesses
The basic aim of a cybersecurity strategy is to protect potential attack avenues and eliminate exploitable vulnerabilities and security gaps. Unfortunately, the complexity of multisite locations makes this even more challenging today. The problem is that you must know what those exact gaps and vulnerabilities are to address them. That is one of the primaries aims of a cybersecurity audit. A cybersecurity risk assessment can be a great first step to identify, analyze and evaluate potential risks and vulnerabilities in your business.??
Prioritization is Important?
Throwing money at a problem is easy, but you probably won’t stay in business very long with that approach. That is why you must prioritize your security directives. Just as community law enforcement can’t be everywhere, you cannot have a tool to combat every type of threat. Some threats are a greater risk than others. A risk assessment can help you prioritize your risk mitigation efforts on the likelihood and potential impact of a designated threat occurring. This will prove especially important should your business ever find itself in litigation concerning a data breach or cybersecurity incident. At that time the court will decide what security efforts would have been deemed reasonable. Reasonable security is the litmus test and ensuring that you allocate your resources to the correct mitigation strategies will yield significant benefits in this type of situation.?
See what makes a good audit and how you can satisfy compliance regulations by reading the full blog, The Importance of Cybersecurity Auditing: Ensuring Compliance and Business Success on our website.
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