Cyber Security Audits
The number of reported Cyber Security breaches have been increasing each year. What may be even more alarming is that the number of records breached per incident has also increased. The following information was obtained from breachlevelindex.com. This website has a lot of useful information regarding data breaches.
If you are into numbers head over to their website and take a look.
| Year | # of Breach Incidents | Records Breached |
| 2015 | 1,673 | 707,509,815 |
| 2016 | 1,792 | 1,378,509,261 |
| 2017 (First Half) |
918 | 1,901,866,611 |
Data breaches can be expensive. According to securityintelligence.com the global average cost per record in 2017 is $141. This number represents a decrease of 11.4 percent over last year. This reduce in cost is attributed to companies strengthening their security posture by deploying countermeasures. This is where Cyber Security audits come into play.
A security audit is a systematic evaluation of the security of a company’s information system by measuring how well it conforms to a set of established criteria. A thorough audit typically assesses the security of the system’s physical configuration and environment, software, information handling processes, and user practices. Security audits are often used to determine regulatory compliance, in the wake of legislation (such as HIPAA, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, and the California Security Breach Information Act) that specifies how organizations must deal with information.
All Companies Should Have Routine Security Audits Performed.
A recent survey conducted by Soha Systems showed that 63 percent of all data breaches can be attributed to a third party. As a business owner it is important to ensure that anyone with access to your network has a strong security posture of their own. Larger companies will sometimes require their vendors to undergo a security audit in order to do business with them.
“Data Breach Insurance” is another reason to conduct routine security audits. Thomas Koulopoulos, the founder of Delphi Group wrote that 60% of businesses that encounter a cyber attack are out of business within six months. Koulopoulos continues to site the following information in his blog post for Inc..
Research conducted by the National Cyber Security Alliance found that:
- Almost 50 percent of small businesses have experienced a cyber attack.
- More than 70 percent of attacks target small businesses.
- As much as 60 percent of hacked small and medium-sized businesses go out of business after six months
You can find the entire blog by clicking here.
Statistics like these are hard to ignore. Intelligent business will sometimes purchase data breach insurance to transfer risk. Security audits are then conducted by the insurance company to evaluate the amount of risk they are taking on. The higher the risk, the higher the insurance premium.
Quick Tip
Hiring a reputable cyber security firm to audit your company and deploy countermeasures to mitigate your risk could save you money on data breach insurance.
If you work in an industry that must adhere to regulations like HIPAA or SOX then you definitely need to conduct routine security audits.
It’s the Right Thing to Do
If you store information about your clients then you have an ethical responsibility to protect their data.
There is no such thing as “Total Security” but by conducting routine security audits you are helping to strengthen the security posture of your network. I hope you found this article to be informative. Please feel free to reach out to us if you are interested in having a security audit conducted. We would be happy to point you in the right direction.
Just click here to contact us.
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