Foresight 2020: Conduct a Compromise Assessment

Welcome to the second part of our Foresight 2020 blog series.

Breaches happen. What do you do if you’re unsure that you’ve been breached? What you don’t know can have serious consequences. Ahem, Target. Wawa. Equifax.

To find out if you’ve been breached, an advisable step is to conduct a compromise assessment. Better yet, do these on a regular basis. Because, as mentioned, breaches happen.

For clarity, a compromise assessment is not to be confused with a security risk assessment, which determines the vulnerabilities within your organization to cybersecurity threats.

If you want to deepen your understanding of security risk assessments, click HERE to learn more.

On the other hand, a compromise assessment is used to identify any unknown malware, ransomware, or an active cyberattack that’s lurking in the shadows, affecting your organization and its networks. It also can reveal whether a threat was active in the past. Unearthing this evidence will help you manage and strengthen your cyber defense.

In the words of the infamous security leader, Christopher Graham: “The knock-on effect of a data breach can be devastating for a company. When customers start taking their business—and their money—elsewhere, that can be a real body blow.”

So, what will a compromise assessment reveal?

A compromise assessment can provide one of two findings.

1. Peace of mind. Knowing that you haven’t been successfully hacked or compromised. It’s often joked that security professionals don’t sleep well because of the constant threat landscape. Can you blame them? They have a serious responsibility to do. Doing such an assessment will allow you to uncover whether your infrastructure has been compromised in any way.
2. Discover unknown compromises. This is huge. Identifying malware, for instance, on your network as well as any red-flag indicators will help you tackle the problem and adjust your security efforts accordingly.

How often are compromise assessments needed?

Highly targeted industries such as healthcare and financial services would benefit from regular compromise assessments. Conducting routine compromise assessments will help security professionals make better informed decisions on how to approach their organization’s security. Not only that, the findings from the assessment can be reported to the organization’s executive board and C-Suite during status updates, budget meetings or roadmap discussions.

Being proactive in security establishes trust and can save the organization money.

It is estimated that cybercrime will cost $6 trillion in damages worldwide by 2021, according to Cybersecurity Ventures. That’s double of what occurred in 2015.

The popularity of wireless devices and an exponential growth of people online have prompted bad actors to ramp up ways to do bad things.

By 2030, nearly 90 percent of the world’s population will have access to the internet. That’s 8.5 billion people.

With more and more people online, cybercrime will continue to proliferate. Taking effective steps to maintain a holistic cybersecurity posture is a must in our modern world.

24By7Security – because hackers never sleep – helps protect enterprises and safeguard their data and sensitive information through a variety of cybersecurity advisory services. The team of highly skilled and trusted experts can conduct compromise assessments so you can focus on your business. Contact us today.

Suggested Reading:

Blog: Is it time for your annual HIPAA Risk Assessment?

Blog: Can you regain customer trust after being hacked?

Blog: How often should you review your policies and procedures?