In a world that is increasingly digitized and interconnected, the importance of risk management cannot be overstated. Whether you are a business owner, an IT professional, or an individual user, understanding and effectively managing risks is paramount to safeguarding your assets and maintaining a secure online presence.
In the post, “Understanding Vulnerabilities,” I introduced you to my dear friends at MITRE, the NVD, and OWASP. You’ll want to get friendly with those fine organizations, if you want to manage your cybersecurity on your own. You’re going to need them as we move into the next step of this exercise: namely, vulnerability remediation.
In recent posts on this blog, I’ve talked about which bad guys are likely coming after your assets—that’s the who. We also discussed a few reasons why—an employee with a grudge, for example, or a jealous competitor, or a greedy stranger. Having assessed all that, the next item to consider is how the attacks might take place. We started talking about the how in my last post, but it’s time to roll up our sleeves and really get technical.
That’s right, this post is about vulnerabilities.
In order to get a handle on who is coming after your data and how to stop them, you’ll need to perform some threat assessments. Sounds scary, but I’ll walk you through it.
In Threats, Part I, I talked about internal threats—such as current and former employees and subcontractors—who may have ill intent or may just be thoughtless with data. But when it comes to threat assessment, internal threats amount to less than half of your worries. So let’s talk the other side of the equation: external threats. just like for their insider counterparts, you’ll need all the intelligence about them that you can get. Who are they? What are their motives?
In Asset Classification Basics, I introduced one of the most basic tenets of cybersecurity: if there’s something of value to you (an asset), then it’s of value to someone else. In my business, those “someone else”s are referred to as threats. To get a handle on your specific situation, you’ll need to perform some threat assessments. That may sound like an intimidating term, but it’s fairly straightforward. Threat assessments help you answer two of the most important questions in cybersecurity: who might be coming after your assets, and how might that occur?