In today's digital landscape, cybersecurity stands out as a critical concern for organizations. With cyber-crime projected to cost a staggering $10.5 trillion by 2025, the urgency to protect sensitive data is more pressing than ever. Surprisingly, a significant portion of organizations fail to integrate security controls into their initiatives from the outset, with only 18% addressing vulnerabilities post-project completion.
Neglecting to incorporate robust cybersecurity measures not only jeopardizes your data but also exposes your customers to potential risks. As cybercriminals continuously advance their techniques, the threat level keeps rising. To assist organizations in tackling this issue, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) introduced the Cybersecurity Framework.
What is the NIST Cybersecurity Framework?
The NIST Cybersecurity Framework is a systematic methodology to manage cybersecurity risk and guide decision-making. The framework is voluntary, but compliance demonstrates that a company has implemented recommended security protocols to reduce risk and protect critical infrastructure and data. It’s a way to build trust, establish reliable security protocols, and communicate to stakeholders that your organization takes privacy seriously.
As can be seen in the diagram above, the framework uses five phases to articulate risk across your organization. This makes understanding of the business impact of risk accessible for both senior executives to those managing the day-to-day. The five phases are described as follows:
- Identify: This foundational phase identifies and prioritizes organizational assets, systems, and potential vulnerabilities. By understanding of business objectives, risk tolerance, and potential threats, organizations can create a solid roadmap for their cybersecurity strategy.
- Protect: The Protect phase implements measures to safeguard critical assets and systems. This includes developing and implementing security policies, awareness training, access controls, and secure architecture to shield critical assets from unauthorized access and potential threats.
- Detect: The Detect phase centers on continuous monitoring and prompt identification of potential cybersecurity threats or incidents. This involves establishing mechanisms for real-time monitoring, event detection, and anomaly detection. By promptly identifying any deviations from the norm, organizations can take swift action to mitigate potential breaches and reduce the impact of cyber incidents.
- Respond: In the event of a cybersecurity incident, the Respond phase ensures well-defined procedures to contain, mitigate, and recover from an attack. Organizations create a plan to coordinate the incident response, manage communications, and implement countermeasures. This plan limits impacts and restores a business back to normal operations.
- Recover: Once an incident has been contained, the Recover phase focuses on learning from the incident and adapting cybersecurity policies. This includes restoring normal operations and services, analyzing the incident’s impact, evaluating the effectiveness of the response, and implementing improvements to prevent similar incidents in the future.
Reasons to Implement the Framework
Failure to implement effective security controls exposes organizations to the risk of data loss and potential intellectual property theft. Beyond the financial implications of data breaches, cyber incidents can incur significant monetary losses and regulatory backlash. By proactively adopting the NIST Cybersecurity Framework, organizations can establish robust security protocols to mitigate risks before they escalate. Here are three ways in which organizations can reap the benefits of implementing this framework:- Promote Informed Communication Among Stakeholders: The NIST framework gives company leaders, boards and day-to-day operators a common vocabulary to discuss risk, communicate security priorities and policies through the organization. Additionally, it provides for firms to set expectations with outside partners and employees. When everyone understands the framework and agrees, security protocols and controls can be implemented more effectively and efficiently.
- Identify Mission-Critical Priorities and Resources: Prioritizing security initiatives can be a difficult process. The NIST framework uses Implementation Tiers and Profiles to identify priorities and choose appropriate activities. Tiers and Profiles can be customized based on the needs of the organization, investment management and documentation of due diligence.
- Guide Implementation Plan and Budget: Now that an organization has identified mission-critical IT security priorities, we can establish the investment business cases for each area of the framework. Leaders can quickly and clearly communicate investment plans, key focus areas with tactical action items to reduce risk in a cost-effective manner.
How Can Sedona Safeguard Help Dealers
As one of the many frameworks to understand security risk, we help clients align their cybersecurity initiatives to at minimum conform with the NIST frameworks. Most importantly, the NIST framework enables us to collaborate with IT and Security managers to demonstrate the opportunities for improvement for your firm's IT security. Additionally, we work with IT managers, CIOs, and cybersecurity leaders to better articulate the business case for more comprehensive cybersecurity and quantify the risk in terms of dollars.