Running a business costs money - there’s no way around it. So as new investments come across approval desks, most executives want to make sure that they’re directly contributing to revenue-driving initiatives.
Unfortunately, cybersecurity initiatives are often classified as operating expenses rather than actual growth drivers. This can be frustrating for security operations to try to justify these costs when they aren’t viewed in the same way as sales or marketing campaigns.
However, it’s important to work at shifting this mindset by focusing on investments that turn simple spending into stable operations that build real trust with clients and partners. Below, we’ll guide you through various ways you can structure your cybersecurity investments to maximize operational safety while keeping wasted spend to a minimum.
Prioritize High-Value Assets and Critical Systems
Keeping your business secure doesn’t necessarily mean having to harden every software or hardware investment the same way. Treating every system with the same level of importance as the next can quickly spread your resources too thin. This then means you’ll have less budget room for more critical infrastructure.
Instead, evaluate all of your company assets first, and classify them based on where certain business risks are evident. Most commonly, this is related to any assets like intellectual property, customer databases, or critical operating systems.
By focusing on your critical assets first, it ensures you can justify spending to leadership teams and easily align the value of protecting them since they’re required to keep the business running.
Adopt a Unified Security and Compliance Strategy
Security planning and compliance management, even though they’re closely related, are often handled in silos. This is a mistake, however. The better path forward is to build and align security controls directly in response to regulatory requirements and operational needs. This embeds security into everything you do and ensures no obligations are overlooked.
This approach follows the commonly termed principle of “est once, comply many,” where you focus on mapping a single security control across multiple compliance standards, such as NIST or ISO 27001.
Consolidating your compliance efforts in this way helps to reduce redundant, manual processes for your security teams while also making audits much less painful to execute.
Invest in Human Firewalls: Training and Culture
Anytime you’re talking about cybersecurity investments, the human element should enter the conversation. Even the most advanced firewalls and security systems won’t be able to protect the business if an employee accidentally leaks company credentials.
All forms of technology have their limits, and it’s important to help supplement them with cybersecurity training and build a resilient security culture in the business. This is referred to as the “human firewall” and can often be just as important, if not more so, than the real thing.
One way to test and calibrate this human element is to conduct simulated drills like phishing testing or cybersecurity training modules for employees. This gives all your staff practical training they can use to sharpen their skills at recognizing security risks and mitigating them effectively.
Implement Proactive Threat Detection and Response
While you can invest in a wide range of cybersecurity solutions, many are designed as passive detection systems. However, maintaining a strictly passive approach to security can be dangerous. Many of today’s threats execute fast and aggressively and may not give you time to react before significantly damaging the business.
Relying on endpoint detection and response (EDR) solutions for continuous network monitoring is a much safer approach. These types of tools provide visibility and control over your networks, spotting anomalies as they appear and giving security teams real-time notifications on potential security issues forming.
Taking this more proactive stance can mean the difference between a small operational disruption and a major cybersecurity crisis.
Leverage Security and Compliance Frameworks
Compliance frameworks are useful for more than just providing your business with a helpful guide for securing its systems and databases. Meeting the requirements and staying compliant can also be an external social proof that your business takes security seriously.
For example, frameworks like HITRUST connect multiple security and operational best practices into a single certification. This helps to reduce confusion often found when needing to go through several security hoops and to check off all the appropriate boxes in your operational planning phases.
Investing in recognized frameworks also pays off down the road by simplifying your vendor risk management strategies, ensuring you’re only partnering with other businesses that take data privacy and security as seriously as you do.
Prioritize Effective Backups and Incident Response
Assuming that you can keep your business 100% secure is the wrong approach to take. It’s important to leave adequate room in your cybersecurity budget for backup and incident response strategies. This ensures that even if your business is successfully attacked, you have a clear path to recovery.
Essential to this defense are immutable backups. These are data backup copies that threats like ransomware can’t encrypt, corrupt, or delete. You also should have a regularly tested incident response plan in place that identifies all your key stakeholders and the role they play when helping the business to resume operations. This investment strengthens your business continuity and helps you get back up and running with minimal disruption to the business.
Invest in the Safety of Your Business
Viewing cybersecurity as a strategic enabler rather than just an added cost can help the business achieve its revenue and sustainability goals. By prioritizing high-value assets, empowering your employees with security best practices, and following proven frameworks, you’ll build a foundation of resilience for your business.
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