Did you know that 45% of security and IT executives expect ransomware attacks to increase this year? This statistic from PwC’s 2023 Global Digital Trust Insights Survey highlights the urgent need for effective cybersecurity measures to protect businesses from escalating cyber threats. But how can you evaluate the effectiveness of your cybersecurity measures?
This article explores methods for assessing cybersecurity effectiveness and highlights steps to advance your cybersecurity maturity level. It investigates the role of cyber risk maturity assessments, the importance of information security, and critical security controls to implement. Finally, we highlight how the Squalify platform can assist you in effectively evaluating your information security controls. By the end of this article, you will clearly understand how to maintain a robust cybersecurity posture and continuously improve your security practices.
Key Takeaways
- A maturity assessment is a method to evaluate how well an organization implements cyber risk management practices and controls.
- Performing a Test of Design (ToD) and Test of Effectiveness (ToE) informs the cyber security maturity and helps ensure that controls are designed pragmatically and implemented effectively.
- Advancing through levels of cyber risk maturity helps identify weaknesses and strengthen your cybersecurity posture.
- Maturity ratings are important, but due to their qualitative nature, it is difficult to show to an executive audience how moving from one maturity level to another improves the actual risk level. Ideally, insights from maturity ratings are complemented by insights from quantitative assessments with output metrics in euros and dollars to make informed decisions about cybersecurity strategies.
What is a Cyber Risk Maturity Assessment?
A cyber risk maturity assessment is a structured process designed to evaluate how well an organization implements cyber risk management practices and controls. This assessment can help your organization understand your cybersecurity posture and identify areas for improvement.
During a cyber risk maturity assessment, organizations assess their cybersecurity controls and assign to them maturity levels, ranging from no processes in place (lowest maturity) to fully automated and optimized processes (highest maturity). A typical maturity framework may have the following maturity levels:
- Initial Level: No formal processes or controls are in place. Efforts to manage cyber risks are reactive and uncoordinated.
- Managed Level: Basic processes and controls are implemented but may need to be better planned and consistently applied across the organization.
- Defined Level: Processes and controls are documented and standardized and consistently applied. Policies are established that are applied across the organization.
- Quantitatively Managed Level: The effectiveness of controls is measured and analyzed. Metrics and data are used to monitor compliance and performance.
- Optimized Level: Cybersecurity processes and controls are automated. Continuous improvement practices ensure controls adapt to emerging threats.
Evaluating your information security control levels provides a detailed understanding of your cybersecurity posture. The assessment output typically includes a list of controls, their assessed maturity scores, and evidence supporting the assigned maturity levels.
This comprehensive evaluation helps identify weaknesses and areas for improvement, guiding your organization toward a more resilient cybersecurity framework.
Measuring the Maturity of Information Security Measures
Determining the maturity of the implemented security controls typically involves a three step process:
- Clarity of Requirements: Identify the requirements that your controls need to address. Typically these requirements may come from risk assessments, international standards, regulations or internal policies and control frameworks.
- Test of Design: Determine whether the implemented controls are designed in a way that meets those requirements
- Test of Effectiveness: Assess how effectively the implemented controls are at actually meeting the predefined requirement and how well these controls are performing.
Step 1: Requirements for Implementing Robust Information Security Controls
The first step to assessing maturity is to have a clear view of the requirements that your security controls need to address. Several well-established frameworks and standards offer guidance on best practices in this area.
- ISO 27001: Outlines best practices for an information security management system (ISMS). It provides a systematic approach to managing sensitive company information.
- NIST Cybersecurity Framework (CSF): This framework provides a structured approach to identifying, assessing, and managing cybersecurity risks. It includes a set of controls and maturity levels.
- CIS Controls: Offers prioritized actions to protect organizations from known cyber attack vectors.
Following one of these frameworks helps ensure that necessary measures are in place to protect your organization against data breaches, maintain data integrity, and ensure system availability. This structured approach also contributes to systematically improving your organization’s cybersecurity posture.
Step 2: Test of Design (ToD) of Information Security Control
The next step is to determine whether the design of the controls meets those requirements. This is often called a Test of Design (ToD). Conducting a Test of Design generally involves:
- Reviewing policy and procedure documentation.
- Interviewing stakeholders involved in the control’s design and operation.
- Observing the control’s execution.
Example for Testing “Access Control”
Suppose your company’s access management policy states, "All user accounts of a person leaving the organization must be deactivated on their final day of employment.” To test the design of this requirement, you can take the following actions:
- Review Process Documentation: The first question to address when conducting a ToD should be whether documentation of a specific process is in place. If documentation doesn’t exist, the implementation of the control is likely to be inconsistent, an indicator of lower maturity. This documentation should provide information on the execution and review of this process to examine whether the process meets the goals of the policy requirement.
In this case, the process should clarify how to identify leavers and how the details of their leaving data are documented and shared between the relevant stakeholders, particularly those responsible for deactivating accounts (who may not be involved in the leaving employee’s resignation/termination decision).
- Interview Stakeholders Involved in the Process: Talk to members of the HR and IT departments to identify how the company is recording resigning and terminated employees, including their final day, and how the transfer of this information happens between the HR department who receives this and the IT department that actions the account deactivation, and how accounts are deactivated.
You need to compare the experiences from the stakeholder interviews with the planned process described in the documentation. Are the stakeholders aware of the process documentation? Are they following the steps? Do they have any feedback about the process design?
- Observing the Execution of the Control: Observing or reviewing an example case of the implemented control can give you a clear view of how the process works. For example, you can see how the leaver data is captured within HR and access systems and transferred between them and how it performs account deactivation.
Overall, the goal of the Test of Design should be to determine whether the control can meet the requirement if performed correctly and that it is in place. The Test of Design can also identify flaws in the control planning. For example, suppose the above observations identify that only HR records the worker’s last date of employment and must share this information manually with IT. In that case, there is a risk that IT will need to be notified in time to deactivate the accounts on the final day.
Step 3: Testing the Effectiveness of Your Controls
The third step in assessing maturity is determining how effectively the implemented controls meet the requirement and how well these controls perform - also known as the Test of Effectiveness (ToE). A ToE aims to determine whether a control is executed consistently over some time (often 12 months) within an organization.
You can use the following methods to test the effectiveness of your security controls:
- Observing the Execution of the Control: For the design test, you can observe the execution of the control to test its effectiveness. However, depending on how frequently the control is performed, observing its performance over a long period may not be feasible to verify whether it performs consistently.
- Sample Testing: Besides observing individual instances of performing a control, evidence of historical performance can be reviewed and analyzed. For our access control example, you could ask for evidence showing departure and account deactivation dates from all departures within a window. By comparing these dates, you can see whether or not the control is effective. If the control is performed frequently, for example, if a company has many leavers, it may be suitable to take a sample of evidence rather than reviewing every single instance.
- Re-performing the Control: Depending on the control’s nature, it may be possible to re-perform it to test its effectiveness. This reassessment could work by verifying that you can obtain the same outputs by providing the same inputs. For the access control example, re-performance may not be feasible unless you create a test employee.
You can evaluate the Test of Effectiveness using a combination of assessment approaches. This assessment must determine how the control performs over time.
How Squalify Helps Assess and Improve Cybersecurity Maturity
Within the Squalify cyber risk quantification platform, information security maturity is one of the sets of input used for our quantification methodology, alongside basic company information and an understanding of the consequences and scenarios that could impact the organization being assessed.
Squalify uses the NIST Cybersecurity Framework to assess an organization’s cyber risk maturity levels. We have defined maturity level definitions for each NIST control that you can select based on your implementation. If you are using other cybersecurity or maturity frameworks, we can easily map it to our internal maturity levels. However, it’s important to note that Squalify does not independently evaluate the effectiveness of your security controls. Instead, we collaborate with the customer to understand their existing assessments and data related to control effectiveness. This enables a faster quantification based on your existing data.
Showing the financial impact of cyber security maturity
After completing a quantification within the Squalify platform, we display the balance between the organization’s security maturity score and its risk exposure (inherent risk). This “Risk Balance” quickly visualizes whether security maturity is above or below good practice levels and enables rapid prioritization of scenarios to address. Additionally, Squalify provides insights into the financial impact of cyber threats to help organizations understand their cyber risk exposure in business terms. The output in the form of board-level ready metrics gives you the necessary insights to make informed strategic decisions regarding which information security initiatives to prioritize.
Benchmarking cyber security maturity
In addition, Squalify can help you benchmark your cybersecurity maturity with similar organizations to identify specific weaknesses and focus your efforts on enhancing those areas. Leveraging over nine years of historical cyber insurance data and insights enables us to provide you with this comparative analysis to understand how your overall maturity levels compare to other organizations in your industry segment based on factors like revenue size and geographic location. Armed with these insights, you can drive targeted continuous cybersecurity improvement initiatives.
Simulate Maturity Improvement
Cyber security maturity is also integrated into Squalify’s simulation features. Want to see how improving the maturity of certain controls will impact cyber risk and reduce potential financial losses? Use a simulation to quickly get an answer.
FAQs about Cyber Risk Maturity Assessment
What is a Cyber Risk Maturity Assessment?
A cyber risk maturity assessment is a structured process designed to evaluate how well your organization implements cyber risk management practices and controls. It identifies your current security maturity level and highlights areas for improvement.
Why is Information Security Important for My Business?
Information security is crucial for protecting sensitive data, ensuring the accuracy and integrity of information, and maintaining the availability of IT systems. It helps safeguard your business operations and customer trust.
How Can I Calculate the Effectiveness of My Security Measures?
You can calculate the effectiveness of your security measures through various methods, such as design testing through document, procedure or configuration review, effectiveness testing through sample testing, technical testing, penetration testing. Continuous monitoring of key performance indicators (KPIs) and regular audits can further enhance your evaluation and improvement efforts.
How Does Squallify Help in Assessing Information Security Maturity?
Squalify offers a comprehensive cyber risk quantification (CRQ) platform for assessing cyber risks. It integrates with the NIST Cybersecurity Framework to capture information seecurity maturity inputs. Additionally, Squalify provides data-backed benchmarking services that enable you to compare your overall maturity levels to those of other organizations in your industry segment. It also provides simulation capabilities to model the risk-reduction impact of improving security maturity.
What are the Benefits of Benchmarking Your Information Security Maturity Against Industry Peers?
Benchmarking against industry peers helps identify areas for improvement in your cybersecurity practices. It allows you to compare your cybersecurity maturity with similar organizations and focus on enhancing weak regions to maintain a robust cybersecurity posture.
Final Words
With 45% of security and IT executives expecting an increase in ransomware attacks, companies are demanding strong cybersecurity measures. Addressing this growing threat requires a proactive and structured approach. Regular cyber risk maturity assessments and continuously measuring security controls are essential for protecting information, ensuring operational integrity, and achieving long-term resilience.
However, due to their qualitative nature, maturity assessments often provide a score that is open to interpretation. It is difficult to show how moving from one maturity level to another improves the actual risk level. These maturity ratings can be misleading when making strategic decisions about prioritizing information security improvements. Instead, maturity ratings need to be supplemented with quantitative insights into the financial impact of cyber risk in euros and dollars.
By following the structured approaches outlined in this article, you can clearly understand the maturity of your security controls, as well as their weaknesses and opportunities for improvement.
The Squallify platform provides valuable tools and insights to assist you in conducting these maturity assessments effectively, enabling improvements and helping you plan and maintain a strong cybersecurity posture.
