Refocus Your Cybersecurity Budget
Trying to secure your entire digital footprint at once is a bit like trying to boil the ocean; it"s an impossible task that wastes energy and resources. The smarter strategy? Risk-based testing!
Risk-based testing is essential for any modern business. This type of strategy helps you focus your efforts on what truly matters, ensuring your security spending has the biggest possible impact.
So, if you"re ready, we"re here to tell you more about this optimal cybersecurity solution.
What is Risk-Based Testing?
Risk-based testing is a strategy that prioritises testing efforts on the parts of your system that carry the most business risk.
Instead of testing every single component with equal intensity, you focus your attention on the areas where a security failure would cause the most damage.
Think of it like city planning.
A major city protects its entire area, but it places more security guards, cameras, and resources around critical locations like the national bank or power grid than it does around a small, local park.
Both are protected, but the level of security matches the level of risk. This same logic applies to protecting your digital assets.
Benefits of a Risk-Based Approach
- Smarter Budgeting. It ensures your security budget goes where it counts the most—protecting your crown jewels.
- Increased Efficiency. Your security teams can focus their valuable time on high-impact areas instead of getting bogged down testing low-risk components.
- Better Protection for Critical Systems. It guarantees your most critical data and systems receive the deep, thorough testing they require.
- Actionable and Relevant Findings. The results of your tests are directly tied to real business risks, making it easier to prioritise fixes and communicate the importance of security to stakeholders.
How to Implement Risk-Based Testing
Implementing this strategy involves a few aspects to help you identify and prioritise your efforts.
Step 1: Identify Your Critical Assets
First, you need to know what you"re protecting. Your critical assets are the parts of your business that are essential to your operations and value.
To identify them, ask these questions:
- What data could we not afford to lose (e.g., customer PII [Personally Identifiable Information], financial records, intellectual property)?
- Which system failures would shut down our business operations?
- What information, if leaked, would cause the most reputational damage?
Step 2: Conduct Threat Modelling
Once you know what"s important, the next step is threat modelling.
The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) defines this as a form of risk assessment that models threats from an attacker"s perspective. In simple terms: Act like a hacker.
You analyse your critical systems and ask, “If I wanted to attack this, how would I do it?” This helps you identify the most likely attack method and potential security weaknesses.
Step 3: Perform a Security Risk Assessment
This step brings everything together. A security risk assessment combines the value of your assets with the likelihood of the threats you"ve identified.
This process helps you calculate a risk score for different scenarios, allowing you to create clear cybersecurity priorities. You then rank risks from most to least critical, giving you a logical order for testing.
Step 4: Design and Execute Targeted Tests
With your priorities set, you can design a testing plan that focuses your resources effectively. Instead of a generic scan, commission a targeted penetration test or a focused cybersecurity audit to probe the highest-risk areas of your business.
Focus Your Efforts with 7ASecurity
Adopting a risk-based strategy requires more than just tools; it requires expertise!
At 7ASecurity, we do more than simply test your systems; we work with you to fully understand your business and its risks. Our penetration tests are built around your priorities.
We help you identify your critical assets and model the real-world threats you face.
The result? A security plan that is not only effective but also efficient, ensuring your resources are invested in protecting what truly matters.
