Given the ever-increasing sophistication of cybercrime methods, organizations must employ advanced assessment tools and practices to reduce or eliminate security gaps. The first step to a successful security posture is to know what your current security network looks like. It’s hard to strengthen a security foundation when you don’t know where the weaknesses are.

 

A comprehensive assessment will evaluate the current security network in all areas, from network architecture and security infrastructure and policy to monitoring capability and incident response readiness. It will identify potential vulnerabilities and highlight gaps in security resources, capabilities, and infrastructure. By conducting this evaluation, organizations will generate the information required to design a blueprint for fundamentally secure operations.

 

Teams should begin by examining the network architecture by looking at ingress and egress points. Specifically, they’ll want to check how many there are, where they are and how they’re used, as well as how they are protected, managed and controlled. Having a complete understanding of ingress and egress points is vital to maintaining the health of the security network.

 

Next, understand what critical services are required to run day-to-day business operations. Are they protected? What controls are in place to protect their operation? What is the most sensitive data for the organization?. Is this data being protected, and how? What controls are in place to protect access and fidelity? They’ll also need to decide what data should be encrypted while at rest and while in motion, a critical factor in the event of data theft.

 

Evaluate the segmentation of the network. Is the network segmented? If so, is the network segmented properly to prevent easy access across large portions of the network?

 

It’s also important to check all of the security controls that are in place. Some key design considerations for all security controls include where they’re deployed, whether they’re in detect or prevent mode, and if they’re set to block known attacks. Teams should also check if the controls are integrated to support the entire security  infrastructure and whether they support user identity.

 

Having this assessment gives teams the knowledge they need to know to create a stronger security system. Schedule a free Security Check Up to assess your network today. Once you have a full assessment of the network, you’ve completed the first step to Stopping the Next Massive Cyberattack.

 

This post is part of a series to encourage organizations to implement security solutions to avoid falling victim to cyberattacks. Cybercriminals can strike any organization at any time. We want to help you be protected. To learn about the Five Steps to avoid being the next data breach read our whitepaper, Stopping the Next Massive Cyberattack.

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