Understanding your organization’s security posture enables business continuity and helps your organization stay competitive in a dynamic risk landscape. However, considering your security posture consists of various diverse components, staying on top of it demands extensive oversight.
The best way forward is to go through a multifaceted process to assess and improve your security posture. In this guide, we’ll explain why maintaining a solid security posture is non-negotiable for any organization. We’ll cover the following:
- The importance of a robust security posture
- Ways to assess an organization’s security posture
- Actionable steps for improving your security posture
Why do you need a strong security posture?
A solid security posture protects your organization from various external and internal threats, including cyberattacks and unauthorized access to sensitive information. Maintaining a strong security posture is essential for unlocking new growth opportunities and avoiding disruptions to your day-to-day operations.
Besides the foundational benefits, investing in your security posture comes with the following benefits:
- Cost savings and increased ROI: The financial burden of data breaches and similar incidents can be astronomical, especially if you factor in lost productivity and recovery costs. A strong security posture helps you save such costs and scale confidently, which strengthens your bottom line.
- Regulatory compliance: Security is a key component of many regulations, such as GDPR and HIPAA. Maintaining a robust security posture will help you stay compliant and align your organization with industry-standard practices.
- More sales opportunities: Prospects will want to see proof of solid security before choosing your product or service. Consistently maintaining your security posture expedites deal cycles.
- Enhanced stakeholder trust: Other stakeholders, such as investors and partners, also prioritize organizational security. Showcasing a strong security posture fosters transparency and trust, boosting your reputation and brand value.
- Complete mapping of your attack surface: Detailed security posture assessments help you identify numerous vulnerabilities malicious actors can exploit. The constant oversight of your risk landscape enables you to tailor comprehensive mitigation plans.
{{cta_withimage10="/cta-modules"}} | How to turn security into revenue ebook
How to assess your security posture
There are numerous approaches to security posture assessment. We’ll highlight two key options below:
- Security review
- Gap analysis
The following table provides a quick overview of both methods:
Gap analysis is generally specific to whatever compliance framework or certification you’re pursuing. Security reviews, on the other hand, are a more granular way of understanding your security posture and should be performed at regular intervals.
How to perform a robust security review
A typical security review involves four primary steps:
- Identify and list all your assets
- Examine your systems for vulnerabilities
- Review your documentation
- Assess risks
Step 1: Identify and list all your assets
For a complete understanding of your security posture, you must first make a comprehensive inventory of your IT assets. The objective is to map out the potential attack surface and identify vulnerabilities that increase cybersecurity risk.
The most notable challenge here is discovering shadow IT—which refers to unsanctioned software and hardware used by your teams that may expose you to unknown security threats. The best practice here is to scan your infrastructure for unapproved applications or devices. Many asset management tools come with features that spot shadow IT automatically.
Step 2: Examine your systems for vulnerabilities
After understanding your attack surface, you need to perform extensive vulnerability scanning. Your security team can look at the following areas:
- Network misconfigurations
- Ineffective password management
- Lackluster malware protection
- Subpar access management
Software-supported vulnerability scans can make security reviews efficient. Consider adopting a capable security solution that enables such scans. After discovering the key vulnerabilities, you can prioritize them according to criticality and tailor a strategy to fill the security gaps.
{{cta_webinar2="/cta-modules"}} | How to streamline security reviews with Trust Center
Step 3: Review your documentation
Security documentation needs to evolve as your threat landscape does. Make sure to check core documentation during security reviews—examples include:
- Access policies
- The validity of security certifications
- Account and password management policies
- Third-party contracts and agreements
Besides reviewing outdated policies and standards, you want to see if your documentation is aligned with industry standards. Security reviews performed by prospects often require you to use an established security questionnaire (e.g., SIG or CAIQ) to assess whether your policies and practices are on par with standard guidelines. Additionally, it also tests the efficacy of your key security documentation such as the incident response and business continuity or disaster recovery plans, and uncovers any gaps in existing processes or technology.
Step 4: Assess risks
Your organization needs to understand both their internal and external risk to understand its security posture. You should have defined workflows to identify and manage risks coming from internal components as well as external factors like third parties.
Most organizations have to partner with various third parties to scale and streamline their operations. This entails adding third parties to your systems, which expand your risk landscape. Your security review should assess if your organization has an effective third-party risk management (TPRM) program to mitigate the relevant risks.
You can evaluate if a program is comprehensive by assessing its underlying third-party risk management practices, which can include:
- Reviewing each third party’s security posture
- Assessing third parties’ access to your systems
- Evaluating fourth-party risk
Your internal security reviews will be easier if you outline and standardize your third-party risk criteria. Doing so will give you a clear benchmark against which you’ll compare all third parties and their risk levels.
5 steps for improving your organization’s security posture
After assessing your security posture, you can take the following steps to improve it:
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- Test and update your incident response plans
- Define and track important security metrics
- Set up continuous monitoring
- Consider implementing a cybersecurity framework
- Automate your security practices
Step 1: Test and update your incident response plans
The strength of your security posture depends on your ability to address the vulnerabilities you’ve uncovered during the assessment—which is covered in an incident response plan. If you already have an elaborate incident response plan, test and update it at regular intervals to ensure minimal damage in case of realized risk events.
Review if your plan has an effective incident detection system—you will need a capable software solution that monitors your security controls in real time and alerts you of any threats.
If a threat turns into an incident, quick containment and resolution are key. That’s why you should outline and update all roles and responsibilities in your plan so that your team can react promptly.
Step 2: Define and track important security metrics
Much like you track KPIs to measure performance, you need to develop and track the right security metrics to help you stay on top of your posture and improve it continuously.
Examples of such metrics include the following:
- Number of known vulnerabilities
- Incident rate and severity
- Mean time to detect
- Mean time to resolve
- Vulnerability patching frequency
These metrics should be monitored regularly, so you can detect and address improvement areas in real time.
{{cta_webinar5="/cta-modules"}} | Questionnaire automation webinar
Step 3: Set up continuous monitoring
Besides tracking metrics, you should set up continuous monitoring of your entire IT infrastructure and relevant security controls to get a real-time (or at least near real-time) overview of your security posture. Ongoing monitoring involves various activities, such as:
- Vulnerability scanning
- Login and access tracking
- Network monitoring
- Intrusion detection
- Endpoint security monitoring
Most of these activities can’t be performed manually, so you’ll need to invest in a solid software solution. While such investments might seem like a nice-to-have because their return isn’t directly connected to revenue generation, they can support your bottom line by preventing disrupting security incidents.
Step 4: Consider implementing a cybersecurity framework
Implementing a cybersecurity framework to improve your security posture is always a good idea, especially if you’re looking to win more prospects.
Most cybersecurity frameworks tell you which controls to prioritize or how to ensure they’re implemented effectively. Since these frameworks are based on industry-best security practices, following them will boost trust among prospective clients and partners.
The good news is that you can refer to numerous established cybersecurity frameworks to help enhance your security posture. Some options include:
- NIST Cybersecurity Framework: Offers a comprehensive set of practices and guidelines for improving your cybersecurity levels.
- Cyber Essentials: Outlines a clear framework and a set of controls designed to shield your organization from the most common cybersecurity threats.
- HITRUST CSF: Helps organizations of any industry and size improve and manage their risk management practices and stay compliant with standard security regulations.
Implementing these frameworks adds structure to your workflows while working on your security posture. There are other frameworks to explore, depending on what works for your industry and current security requirements.
Step 5: Automate your security practices
Assessing and improving your security posture takes a lot of time and effort. You should look for any opportunity to streamline and automate manual processes. The idea is to remove the pressure of repetitive tasks and give your security team more time to spend on other strategic initiatives.
For instance, manual point-in-time assessments and tracking security reviews via inefficient tools like spreadsheets can slow down your security team. Look for software that can streamline these tasks and make security reviews more visible and actionable.
The good news is that you can find numerous automation solutions that enable a complete overview of your security posture and its continuous improvements. One of the best options you have is Vanta.
{{cta_testimonial16="/cta-modules"}} | ComplyCube customer story
Assess and improve your security posture with Vanta
If you need comprehensive software that makes it easy to assess, manage, and demonstrate your security posture, Vanta is an excellent solution. It’s a trust management platform designed to automate and streamline key workflows for your team.
Vanta’s Trust Center is an efficient solution for showcasing your security and compliance posture in real time, which makes it easier to build trust with prospects and access better deals. Powered by Vanta AI, it helps your prospects find the documentation and answers they need. Here’s what customers experience:
- 87 percent of security reviews deflected with a Trust Center
- 93 percent of access approvals automated
- 86 percent of NDA collection automated
You can watch this short webinar to see how the Trust Center streamlines security reviews.
Vanta’s Questionnaire Automation is another useful product that can help your security team complete security reviews up to 5 times faster. If you receive security questionnaires as a part of a prospect’s due diligence, Vanta will help you fast-track response generation with features such as:
- A centralized knowledge base
- Automated questionnaire processing
- AI-supported questionnaire responses
- Support for multi-format questionnaires
Schedule a demo to get a customized walkthrough today.
{{cta_simple14="/cta-modules"}} | Trust center product page
Understanding Security Posture
How to assess and improve your security posture
Understanding Security Posture
Understanding your organization’s security posture enables business continuity and helps your organization stay competitive in a dynamic risk landscape. However, considering your security posture consists of various diverse components, staying on top of it demands extensive oversight.
The best way forward is to go through a multifaceted process to assess and improve your security posture. In this guide, we’ll explain why maintaining a solid security posture is non-negotiable for any organization. We’ll cover the following:
- The importance of a robust security posture
- Ways to assess an organization’s security posture
- Actionable steps for improving your security posture
Why do you need a strong security posture?
A solid security posture protects your organization from various external and internal threats, including cyberattacks and unauthorized access to sensitive information. Maintaining a strong security posture is essential for unlocking new growth opportunities and avoiding disruptions to your day-to-day operations.
Besides the foundational benefits, investing in your security posture comes with the following benefits:
- Cost savings and increased ROI: The financial burden of data breaches and similar incidents can be astronomical, especially if you factor in lost productivity and recovery costs. A strong security posture helps you save such costs and scale confidently, which strengthens your bottom line.
- Regulatory compliance: Security is a key component of many regulations, such as GDPR and HIPAA. Maintaining a robust security posture will help you stay compliant and align your organization with industry-standard practices.
- More sales opportunities: Prospects will want to see proof of solid security before choosing your product or service. Consistently maintaining your security posture expedites deal cycles.
- Enhanced stakeholder trust: Other stakeholders, such as investors and partners, also prioritize organizational security. Showcasing a strong security posture fosters transparency and trust, boosting your reputation and brand value.
- Complete mapping of your attack surface: Detailed security posture assessments help you identify numerous vulnerabilities malicious actors can exploit. The constant oversight of your risk landscape enables you to tailor comprehensive mitigation plans.
{{cta_withimage10="/cta-modules"}} | How to turn security into revenue ebook
How to assess your security posture
There are numerous approaches to security posture assessment. We’ll highlight two key options below:
- Security review
- Gap analysis
The following table provides a quick overview of both methods:
Gap analysis is generally specific to whatever compliance framework or certification you’re pursuing. Security reviews, on the other hand, are a more granular way of understanding your security posture and should be performed at regular intervals.
How to perform a robust security review
A typical security review involves four primary steps:
- Identify and list all your assets
- Examine your systems for vulnerabilities
- Review your documentation
- Assess risks
Step 1: Identify and list all your assets
For a complete understanding of your security posture, you must first make a comprehensive inventory of your IT assets. The objective is to map out the potential attack surface and identify vulnerabilities that increase cybersecurity risk.
The most notable challenge here is discovering shadow IT—which refers to unsanctioned software and hardware used by your teams that may expose you to unknown security threats. The best practice here is to scan your infrastructure for unapproved applications or devices. Many asset management tools come with features that spot shadow IT automatically.
Step 2: Examine your systems for vulnerabilities
After understanding your attack surface, you need to perform extensive vulnerability scanning. Your security team can look at the following areas:
- Network misconfigurations
- Ineffective password management
- Lackluster malware protection
- Subpar access management
Software-supported vulnerability scans can make security reviews efficient. Consider adopting a capable security solution that enables such scans. After discovering the key vulnerabilities, you can prioritize them according to criticality and tailor a strategy to fill the security gaps.
{{cta_webinar2="/cta-modules"}} | How to streamline security reviews with Trust Center
Step 3: Review your documentation
Security documentation needs to evolve as your threat landscape does. Make sure to check core documentation during security reviews—examples include:
- Access policies
- The validity of security certifications
- Account and password management policies
- Third-party contracts and agreements
Besides reviewing outdated policies and standards, you want to see if your documentation is aligned with industry standards. Security reviews performed by prospects often require you to use an established security questionnaire (e.g., SIG or CAIQ) to assess whether your policies and practices are on par with standard guidelines. Additionally, it also tests the efficacy of your key security documentation such as the incident response and business continuity or disaster recovery plans, and uncovers any gaps in existing processes or technology.
Step 4: Assess risks
Your organization needs to understand both their internal and external risk to understand its security posture. You should have defined workflows to identify and manage risks coming from internal components as well as external factors like third parties.
Most organizations have to partner with various third parties to scale and streamline their operations. This entails adding third parties to your systems, which expand your risk landscape. Your security review should assess if your organization has an effective third-party risk management (TPRM) program to mitigate the relevant risks.
You can evaluate if a program is comprehensive by assessing its underlying third-party risk management practices, which can include:
- Reviewing each third party’s security posture
- Assessing third parties’ access to your systems
- Evaluating fourth-party risk
Your internal security reviews will be easier if you outline and standardize your third-party risk criteria. Doing so will give you a clear benchmark against which you’ll compare all third parties and their risk levels.
5 steps for improving your organization’s security posture
After assessing your security posture, you can take the following steps to improve it:
- Test and update your incident response plans
- Define and track important security metrics
- Set up continuous monitoring
- Consider implementing a cybersecurity framework
- Automate your security practices
Step 1: Test and update your incident response plans
The strength of your security posture depends on your ability to address the vulnerabilities you’ve uncovered during the assessment—which is covered in an incident response plan. If you already have an elaborate incident response plan, test and update it at regular intervals to ensure minimal damage in case of realized risk events.
Review if your plan has an effective incident detection system—you will need a capable software solution that monitors your security controls in real time and alerts you of any threats.
If a threat turns into an incident, quick containment and resolution are key. That’s why you should outline and update all roles and responsibilities in your plan so that your team can react promptly.
Step 2: Define and track important security metrics
Much like you track KPIs to measure performance, you need to develop and track the right security metrics to help you stay on top of your posture and improve it continuously.
Examples of such metrics include the following:
- Number of known vulnerabilities
- Incident rate and severity
- Mean time to detect
- Mean time to resolve
- Vulnerability patching frequency
These metrics should be monitored regularly, so you can detect and address improvement areas in real time.
{{cta_webinar5="/cta-modules"}} | Questionnaire automation webinar
Step 3: Set up continuous monitoring
Besides tracking metrics, you should set up continuous monitoring of your entire IT infrastructure and relevant security controls to get a real-time (or at least near real-time) overview of your security posture. Ongoing monitoring involves various activities, such as:
- Vulnerability scanning
- Login and access tracking
- Network monitoring
- Intrusion detection
- Endpoint security monitoring
Most of these activities can’t be performed manually, so you’ll need to invest in a solid software solution. While such investments might seem like a nice-to-have because their return isn’t directly connected to revenue generation, they can support your bottom line by preventing disrupting security incidents.
Step 4: Consider implementing a cybersecurity framework
Implementing a cybersecurity framework to improve your security posture is always a good idea, especially if you’re looking to win more prospects.
Most cybersecurity frameworks tell you which controls to prioritize or how to ensure they’re implemented effectively. Since these frameworks are based on industry-best security practices, following them will boost trust among prospective clients and partners.
The good news is that you can refer to numerous established cybersecurity frameworks to help enhance your security posture. Some options include:
- NIST Cybersecurity Framework: Offers a comprehensive set of practices and guidelines for improving your cybersecurity levels.
- Cyber Essentials: Outlines a clear framework and a set of controls designed to shield your organization from the most common cybersecurity threats.
- HITRUST CSF: Helps organizations of any industry and size improve and manage their risk management practices and stay compliant with standard security regulations.
Implementing these frameworks adds structure to your workflows while working on your security posture. There are other frameworks to explore, depending on what works for your industry and current security requirements.
Step 5: Automate your security practices
Assessing and improving your security posture takes a lot of time and effort. You should look for any opportunity to streamline and automate manual processes. The idea is to remove the pressure of repetitive tasks and give your security team more time to spend on other strategic initiatives.
For instance, manual point-in-time assessments and tracking security reviews via inefficient tools like spreadsheets can slow down your security team. Look for software that can streamline these tasks and make security reviews more visible and actionable.
The good news is that you can find numerous automation solutions that enable a complete overview of your security posture and its continuous improvements. One of the best options you have is Vanta.
{{cta_testimonial16="/cta-modules"}} | ComplyCube customer story
Assess and improve your security posture with Vanta
If you need comprehensive software that makes it easy to assess, manage, and demonstrate your security posture, Vanta is an excellent solution. It’s a trust management platform designed to automate and streamline key workflows for your team.
Vanta’s Trust Center is an efficient solution for showcasing your security and compliance posture in real time, which makes it easier to build trust with prospects and access better deals. Powered by Vanta AI, it helps your prospects find the documentation and answers they need. Here’s what customers experience:
- 87 percent of security reviews deflected with a Trust Center
- 93 percent of access approvals automated
- 86 percent of NDA collection automated
You can watch this short webinar to see how the Trust Center streamlines security reviews.
Vanta’s Questionnaire Automation is another useful product that can help your security team complete security reviews up to 5 times faster. If you receive security questionnaires as a part of a prospect’s due diligence, Vanta will help you fast-track response generation with features such as:
- A centralized knowledge base
- Automated questionnaire processing
- AI-supported questionnaire responses
- Support for multi-format questionnaires
Schedule a demo to get a customized walkthrough today.
{{cta_simple14="/cta-modules"}} | Trust center product page
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