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Call us on 03450 21 21 51
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When it comes to business performance, knowledge is power. Performance elements which are actively monitored and measured over time are more likely to improve, providing you with insight about when to nourish, when to step back and when to intervene.
This is true of all measurements of success, from sales and marketing to employee satisfaction, but it is also true of cybersecurity.
As a more recent discipline, performance measures in cybersecurity are not as set in stone as other business factors, leaving many entrepreneurs confused about how best to turn cybersecurity data into clear KPIs.
Completing risk assessments and looking at what is important to your specific business (including what you want to improve on) are also valuable steps in creating specific and measurable KPIs.
Luckily, we’re here to help. By learning to measure your cybersecurity performance, you can learn to manage it more effectively, too.
There is a great deal of literature out there about cybersecurity breaches – from IT specialists to news headlines – but rarely we do hear talk of cybersecurity successes. Many businesses operate under a single cybersecurity metric: whether or not a data breach has occurred. However, this overly simplistic view of cybersecurity fails to provide a clear picture of your brand’s overall cybersecurity structure.
Compliance is a vital component of effective cybersecurity, and an organisation’s implementation measurements are used to monitor adherence to various cybersecurity standards such as ISO27001. Maintaining a high standard here involves establishing a clear security baseline and continuously improving until you are operating at or near 100%.
Using a constant flow of information to respond to potential vulnerabilities can help you improve your security baseline, updating your informational dashboard to give you a clearer idea of how your business operates on a digital level.
Effectiveness measurements can be used to monitor how well your business prevents and responds to cyber incidents. Having pre-planned responses to cybercrimes in place can help you maintain a high level of performance in your effectiveness measurements, making it easier to implement efficient and effective action.
These responses should be formed from the risk assessment information collected under your implementation measurements. They should then be exercised regularly on your organisation’s most valuable assets so that they can be updated and reviewed as needed. As such, the necessary steps can be taken to make actions faster and more effective in the event that you’re hit with a data breach or malware attack.
It’s also important to measure the potential impact of a cybersecurity breach, and the damage that could be caused to your organisational assets – both tangible and intangible.
Maintaining a high performance in your impact measurements means managing the fallout of a breach effectively. The consequences of a cybersecurity breach can be devastating both financially and reputationally, so it’s vital that businesses take the necessary steps to manage incident fallout and minimise potential damage.
There is no one-size-fits-all approach to cybersecurity performance. While some organisations may find that it’s best to measure success through compliance to a particular regulatory standard, while others may wish to put more focus on measuring the long term effectiveness of cybersecurity, rather than only responding to risks and vulnerabilities.
By developing clear KPIs, you can measure the success of your cybersecurity overall and over time. These measurements can then be used to create tailored dashboards and monitor performance in a way which is easily digestible and reportable, making cybersecurity a natural and intrinsic part of your organisation’s success.
