Your Business Guide to Cybersecurity

Your Business Guide to Cybersecurity

This guide aims to give you a greater understanding of cybersecurity services offered to SMEs to manage cyber risk. By the end you should understand which services are appropriate for your business and be in an excellent position to get the most value out of these services.

Cybersecurity is an essential aspect of doing business in the digital age. As companies increasingly rely on technology to store and manage data, the risk of cyber-attacks and data breaches grows. Whatever the size of your organisations' digital footprint, it is essential to be proactive and take steps to protect your digital assets from cyber threats. In this guide we aim to cover key areas of cybersecurity, aimed at SMEs looking to implement security best practices, focusing on penetration testing and vulnerability scanning services.

Do you need cybersecurity services?

The need for cybersecurity services grows in line with the size and complexity of your digital infrastructure. Still, it is crucial to remember that every business, regardless of size or industry is vulnerable to cyber-attacks. Cybercriminals are always looking for new ways to exploit and compromise systems for personal gain. Whether they are stealing data, deploying ransomware or denying customers access to your services, they're always looking for a way in.

Here are some statistics from recent studies to give you an idea of the potential impact that cyber-attacks can have on SMEs:

• The 2020 Cybersecurity Breaches Survey by the UK government found that 46% of businesses experienced a cyber-attack or breach in the past 12 months.
• A 2022 report by insurance company Hiscox found that the median cost of a cyber-attack in the UK was £23,200.
• A 2020 survey by IBM found that 60% of small businesses go out of business within six months of a cyber-attack.

A single data breach can have severe consequences for a company, including financial losses, damage to reputation, and legal liabilities. Although the risk of cyber-attack can never be eliminated - by regularly assessing and adequately maintaining your systems you can reduce your risk exposure and ensure that your business maintains good security posture.

How do you get started?

A good place to start is by performing a risk assessment to understand the risks facing your business and industry as a whole. This will help to inform decisions about which cybersecurity services should be prioritised so that you get the best protection. It is recommended that you perform a risk assessment with the assistance of a professional security service provider like ourselves, but it is good to gain insight into this process first, so that you can get the most value from your cybersecurity services.

Here are some areas which will be assessed during the process of a cybersecurity risk assessment:

• What digital assets do you own?: Identify the information and systems that are critical to your business operations. Critical information may include customer data, financial information, intellectual property, and other sensitive information. Critical systems can consist of devices which you are in control of such as PC's, laptops, mobile devices, servers (including cloud), routers, switches, firewalls etc.
• What threats are these assets exposed to? Identify the potential threats to these assets, such as cyber-attacks, natural disasters, and human error.
• What specific vulnerabilities affect these assets? Identify the weaknesses or vulnerabilities in your systems and processes that these threats could exploit. Common vulnerabilities include: weak passwords, phishing attacks, outdated software, employees lacking security training and insecure endpoints such as laptops, desktops and mobile devices.
• How likely are these threats and what is their impact? Analyse the likelihood and potential impact of each identified threat to your assets, considering factors such as how likely they are to occur and their potential financial or reputational implications.

Once a risk assessment has been conducted, it will be possible to recommend specific services. Here is a breakdown of the most common security services available for SMEs:

• Vulnerability Scanning: Vulnerability scanning is a service that scans a business's systems and networks for known vulnerabilities and produces a report on potential weaknesses. This can help SMEs identify and address vulnerabilities before they can be exploited by cybercriminals.
• Penetration Testing: Penetration testing involves simulating a cyber-attack to identify weaknesses in a business's systems and processes. This can help SMEs identify vulnerabilities and address them before cybercriminals can exploit them.
• Managed Detection and Response: Managed detection and response (MDR) is a service that provides ongoing monitoring of a business's systems and networks for potential cyber threats. This can help SMEs detect and respond to cyber-attacks promptly, reducing the potential impact of the attack.
• Endpoint Security: Endpoint security services protect endpoints such as laptops, smartphones, and other mobile devices. This can include antivirus and malware protection, encryption, and remote wipe capabilities.
• Email Security: Email is a common vector for cyber-attacks such as phishing and malware delivery. Email security services can protect against these threats, including spam filtering, virus scanning, and email encryption.
• Employee Training: Employee training is an essential component of any cybersecurity strategy. SMEs should provide regular training on cybersecurity awareness and best practices to help employees recognise and avoid potential threats.

In the following sections we will focus on vulnerability scanning and penetration testing as these are the services most commonly outsourced by businesses.

Vulnerability Scanning

Overview

Vulnerability scanning is a critical service that is recommended for all businesses with any kind of digital infrastructure. Systems are complex and often comprise many individual software components, each potentially containing vulnerabilities waiting to be exploited by attackers. Vulnerabilities may arise for a various reasons such as errors in the code, misconfiguration or using outdated/unsupported software. By regularly scanning your systems and comparing results against global vulnerability databases, vulnerability scanning services aim to:

• Identify security flaws.
• Assign a risk rating to each vulnerability discovered.
• Provide actionable steps to allow issues to be resolved effectively.
• Provide technical information on causation and methods of identification.

On completion of a scan, reports can be handed over to your developers to apply the recommended changes. Your systems will then be rescanned to ensure that the changes have remediated the vulnerabilities. This process is usually repeated monthly or quarterly depending on your business’ specific needs.

Our Service

We do vulnerability scanning a bit differently by utilising a mixture of automated and manual techniques to ensure that the reports are accurate and as actionable as possible. It is common for vulnerability scan reports to contain false positives which can waste developers time during the remediation process. Our security professionals verify vulnerabilities so that you know you're making the changes that matter.

We take a personalised approach to our vulnerability scanning service and tailor it to the unique requirements of each client. We understand that different network configurations may require different setups to implement vulnerability scanning effectively. Our team will work with you to determine the best approach for your network configuration and business needs. If you would like to learn more about our service, you can visit our vulnerability assessment page.

Penetration Testing

Overview

Penetration testing is a more in-depth and hands-on approach to security testing, which makes it particularly well-suited for custom applications and more complex networks. While vulnerability scanning provides a valuable overview of potential vulnerabilities in an organisation's systems, penetration testing takes a deeper dive into security by simulating real-world attacks and attempting to exploit vulnerabilities that may not be present on vulnerability databases. Using this approach, penetration testing services can identify potential security weaknesses and provide actionable recommendations to improve the organisation's overall security posture. Penetration testing services aim to:

• Uncover weaknesses in the security infrastructure that may not be identifiable through vulnerability scanning.
• Test the effectiveness of security controls, incident response plans, and other defensive measures.
• Evaluate your organisation's readiness to detect, respond to, and recover from a cyber-attack.
• Provide a comprehensive report of findings with recommendations to improve the organisation's security posture.

Penetration testing is essential for businesses that handle sensitive data or are subject to regulatory compliance requirements. It can provide a deeper understanding of the organisation's security posture and identify vulnerabilities that may go unnoticed through vulnerability scanning alone. By taking a more comprehensive and proactive approach to security, businesses can better protect their assets and reduce the risk of data breaches and cyber-attacks.

Our Service

We can offer comprehensive penetration testing services aimed at uncovering security flaws in a wide variety of targets. Whatever the requirements of your penetration test, we are confident that we have the security professionals on hand to meet the unique needs of your business.

On completion of testing you will receive an easy-to-read, actionable report that provides a detailed overview of findings, recommended remediation steps and more technical information. Once you have received the report, we then offer complimentary post-engagement support to ensure you can effectively remediate any identified vulnerabilities. Once you have patched the recommended vulnerabilities, we will retest free of charge so you can rest assured knowing that the discovered security flaws have been remediated effectively. To learn more about the service, please visit our penetration testing page.

Next Steps

We hope that this guide has answered some of your questions and you now feel in a better position to implement cybersecurity services for your business. If you have any further questions, use the following link to book your free consultation with one of our experts today.