Cybersecurity Tools Are Not the Same as Cybersecurity Readiness
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Most organizations have invested in cybersecurity tools. They may have antivirus, firewalls, backups, multifactor authentication, email filtering, cyber insurance, and even a written incident response plan.
But would those protections work together during a real cyberattack?
According to a recent survey reported by The Hacker News, 73% of organizations said they would not be fully prepared if a major cyberattack happened tomorrow. Even more concerning, 76% had already experienced at least one attack during the previous year.
The problem is not always a lack of security products. It is often a lack of preparation, testing, coordination, and clearly assigned responsibility. Cybersecurity tools are important. Cybersecurity readiness is knowing what to do when those tools are not enough.
A Cybersecurity Plan Is Only a Starting Point
Many organizations have an incident response document stored somewhere. Unfortunately, having a document does not prove the organization can execute it.
During a real incident, someone may need to decide whether to disconnect a server, disable an executive’s account, shut down email, contact the insurance carrier, preserve evidence, notify clients, or authorize emergency spending.
Those decisions involve more than IT. Management, legal counsel, insurance representatives, vendors, and outside cybersecurity specialists may all be involved.
The survey found that 90% of respondents expected difficulty coordinating stakeholders during a serious incident. It also found that 89% believed insufficient executive or board involvement was affecting readiness.
A plan cannot work if the people named in it have never practiced it or agreed on who can make critical decisions.
What Does Cybersecurity Readiness Look Like?
Readiness means an organization can detect a problem, contain it, maintain essential operations, communicate when normal systems are unavailable, and recover its data.
NIST emphasizes this broader approach in its Incident Response Recommendations and Considerations.
For a smaller organization, readiness does not require a large security department. It does require answers to questions such as:
- Who can isolate computers or shut down systems?
- Who contacts the cyber insurance carrier and attorney?
- How will employees communicate if Microsoft 365 or email is unavailable?
- Which systems must be restored first?
- Can backups actually be restored?
- Which vendors will be needed during recovery?
If these questions cannot be answered quickly, there is work to do.
Test the Plan Before You Need It
One of the best ways to evaluate readiness is with a tabletop exercise. Management and technical personnel walk through a simulated incident and discuss what they would actually do.
NIST provides a Guide to Test, Training, and Exercise Programs for IT Plans and Capabilities.
CISA provides downloadable Tabletop Exercise Packages covering ransomware, phishing, insider threats, and other incidents. It also publishes Cybersecurity Tabletop Exercise Tips to help organizations conduct their first exercise.
A simple exercise might begin with an employee reporting that files will not open. A ransom message appears, email may be compromised, and a client says they received a suspicious payment request from an employee’s account.
What happens next?
The team should discuss what it would do during the first 15 minutes, first hour, and rest of the business day. Every unanswered question becomes an improvement item.
Five Practical Steps to Improve Readiness
- Assign people and authority. Identify who makes executive, technical, legal, insurance, and communication decisions.
- Create an offline communications plan. Keep critical phone numbers and instructions accessible even when company email or cloud services are unavailable.
- Document recovery priorities. Know which systems, vendors, administrator accounts, and data are critical and what must come back online first.
- Test recovery. A successful backup notification is not the same as a successful restore. Periodically test files, mailboxes, servers, and application recovery.
- Practice the plan. Conduct a tabletop exercise, document weaknesses, assign corrective actions, and repeat the exercise after changes are made.
How CDML Can Help
CDML can help organizations move from owning cybersecurity products to building real cybersecurity readiness.
That can include reviewing incident response procedures, improving system documentation, testing backup recovery, evaluating administrator access, strengthening email and identity security, deploying endpoint and identity threat detection, and helping prepare for cyber insurance requirements.
CDML can also help conduct a tabletop exercise based on the organization’s actual technology, employees, vendors, and business priorities.
Final Thoughts
Cybersecurity products can reduce risk, but no product can guarantee that an incident will never happen. Readiness comes from preparation, tested recovery, clearly assigned authority, and practice.
Do not wait until systems are encrypted, email is unavailable, and customers are calling to discover whether your incident response plan works.
Contact CDML Computer Services to review your cybersecurity readiness, incident response plan, and recovery procedures before a real emergency puts them to the test.
Stay safe. Stay informed. Stay compliant.
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