Even the individual who knows little about technology knows what cybersecurity is, or at least the basics behind the concept. Cybersecurity means various security procedures that a person or company enacts to make sure that no one hacks their website or network. It’s an overarching term that might include dozens of elements.
There are cybersecurity companies that can look at the measures you have in place. It’s often worth it to hire them, especially if you have an eCommerce site or an online proprietary workplace platform your workers use.
Though these companies might offer tons of different services, there are three areas to which you might want to pay particular attention, and we’ll talk about each one in this article. However, before moving to that, it’s been found most of the issues websites & web app have such as server slowing down or app crashing are more due to incapable SQL server than anything else, so, make sure you use SQL Server Consulting before moving on to analyse other areas of your internet business.
Penetration Testing
If you’re looking at various cybersecurity measures you should take, penetration testing is one of the first ones that are worth your attention. Penetration testing:
- Is something you can hire a company to do
- Is a way for you to determine any system vulnerabilities
If you order a penetration test, what happens is that the company you hire unleashes hackers that emulate a real-world network or website security threat. They will not damage or compromise your network or site, but they will test it for vulnerabilities systematically and methodically.
They will identify any possible weaknesses. The point is locating them and noting them before a real attacker does.
They will do things like vulnerability scanning and a physical penetration test if your network allows them to. Part of it is often a social engineering assessment.
They can do a web application penetration test if your company has one. They can also do external and internal penetration tests and wireless penetration tests, depending on your business model’s exact nature.
Strategic Consulting
Strategic consulting is next up, and this is another potentially multifaceted service. It might involve:
- An Internet of Things (IoT) security assessment
- A cloud security assessment
- A formal risk assessment
Again, your network or website needs will determine which services make sense for you. You might also ask the company about customized security consulting or a security best practice gap assessment. You might need to do incident response and malware analysis.
If your business is starting up, you could order a security policy review, or you might call upon the company to create a comprehensive policy for yourself and your employees. You may need a simple password or firewall audit.
Some companies will also do a host compliance audit if they’re not sure whether they should move to a different web hosting provider. You might start with one provider, but your needs change as your company grows, or you start adding more products and services to your repertoire.
Compliance Auditing
Some companies also need to look into compliance auditing. This is a much more specialized testing service that some cybersecurity companies do provide.
Some companies need to comply with various governmental regulations if they want to attract the right clients. These customers will not consider doing business with a company unless they see they have proper website compliance. It’s a security matter.
There’s NIST/DFARS compliance, GDPR compliance, and HIPAA compliance. There’s also PCI DSS compliance. You might need a company to do a CIS critical controls compliance test as well.
Your business model will determine how many of these you need. Some companies can get away with no compliance checks, but at a minimum, you’ll still want to do periodic penetration testing and strategic consulting.
Cybersecurity Company and Business Relationships
Once your business opens, and it’s humming along on all cylinders, you’ll want to establish a friendly cybersecurity company relationship. When you have one in place, it could last for years.
You want a company that charges you a reasonable price, so shop around. You never want to skimp in this area because if you do, you might have to deal with a real hacker attack, and that can cost you tons of time and money. Also, if your website crashes, that’s not going to inspire customer confidence.
Remember that even if you get a cybersecurity company to take a look at your infrastructure and everything seems to be okay, that does not mean it will stay that way indefinitely. Threats can develop over time, as can system vulnerabilities.
You should have a risk assessment meeting and probably penetration testing every six months or a year at most. That way, there won’t be any nasty surprises waiting when you try to access your website one day.
