In the wake of recent high-profile data breaches, organizations of all sizes are seeking ways to better protect their business-critical systems and prevent future attacks of a similar nature. According to Cybercrime Magazine, more than half of all cyberattacks are committed against small-to-midsized businesses (SMBs).

The primary reason organizations give for not investing in cybersecurity protection, is cost. Paying upfront for prevention is a hard sell when budgets are tight, and even more of a challenge when there’s been no attack and the pursuit is based on the possibility of. It seems that daily we hear about organizations falling victim to ransomware and other network breaches. They are in the news because they failed to make proper data security a priority. 

There are two approaches to cybersecurity: proactive and reactive. Security assessments are a great discovery tool for prospects, but also effective to ensure proactive monitoring for any future network vulnerabilities. It starts a dialogue that you, the security expert, can control. The term “security assessment” is very broad though – there are several types of assessments with varying purposes. Where do you start?

Imagine you’re going camping this weekend. You’ll be meeting your friends and family there, and it’s going to be a festive time.  (C’mon, play along here.) Time is short, so your brain has probably already started thinking about what you need to pack and purchase to make sure a good time is had by all.   

Most likely you have already heard the devastating news of the cyber-attack against Equifax in mid-May.  Although the world didn’t find out about the breach until mid-September, the impact to individuals was tremendous with the exfiltration of names, addresses, SSNs and birth dates for over 145.5M people.