Modern networks have more than their fair share of risks, with the most damaging often being data breaches, including ransomware attacks. According to the 2023 Verizon Data Breach Investigations Report (DBIR), stolen credentials and ransomware attacks account for the largest share of data breaches in 2022. As seen in the screenshot below, IBM estimates that the average cost of a data breach globally in 2023 to be $4.45 million, with an average per-record cost of $165. Let’s be honest, that’s EXPENSIVE.
A question that Secure Ideas has received since inception (and, quite frankly, more and more often lately) is “How can Secure Ideas help my organization manage our risks and lower our costs?” Our answer is actually pretty simple – get a security assessment or penetration test done by our team of seasoned, skillful experts with years of experience. At Secure Ideas, our primary focus is delivering the best pentest experience ever. And because pentesting is our bread and butter, we witness risk first hand and help mitigate it.
At its core, security is about risk management. Managing risk is often costly from a time, human capital, and financial perspective. There are several strategies to manage risk, including mitigation (reducing impact from an imposed threat), avoidance (evading risk by taking a different route to achieve a goal), acceptance (understanding that the cost of the mitigation outweighs the cost of the risk itself), and transference (having another entity take on the responsibility of the risk).
Let’s talk about risk transference, specifically one of the most common methods of risk transference – cyber insurance. Cyber insurance is fast becoming essential as a risk management strategy for many businesses. Having good coverage in the event of an incident or breach can save an organization hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars. But while finding the right coverage for your organization is important, so is finding the right cost – and over the last few years, cyber insurance premium prices have been skyrocketing.
Insurance companies create and use risk profiles for setting up policies and premiums for cyber insurance. A risk profile is a quantitative analysis of the types of threats an organization can face. The following list contains just a few factors that can increase the cost of cyber insurance premiums:
There are also factors that can decrease an organization’s risk profile, which will lower the overall cost of cyber insurance. This is where Secure Ideas’ Professionally Evil Testing as a Service (PETaaS) offering can help.
Secure Ideas has a world class team of cybersecurity experts which can not only help lower your organization’s cyber insurance overall costs, but also can help mitigate risks at every turn.
Our newest offering, Professionally Evil Testing as a Service (PETaaS), is helping several organizations manage their risk at a whole new level. Our PETaaS clients receive expert guidance, strategic advice, and technical consulting on all aspects of cybersecurity. Also, with our flexible test credits and continuous penetration testing offerings, your organization can receive penetration tests on an almost at-will basis, so your organization can always know what your risk level looks like.
Some organizations that haven’t had a penetration test on their network or applications before can find it daunting to have one completed. If your organization fits in this category, we have you covered. As a precursor to a pentest, our clients will often have a security assessment completed. This helps the organization to understand where they stand from an overall security maturity level, and helps them address vulnerabilities and misconfiguration issues before they become a problem. As stated above, having a security assessment done can also help lower the costs of cyber insurance.
Even if you don’t need (or want) a pentest right now, PETaaS credits can also be used for security assessments, gap analyses, and any of our other security consulting services, including our Infosec Advisory services. With PETaaS, you connect directly with Secure Ideas’ consultants through Slack channels (or other channels if needed) and get expert advice within minutes. Our PETaaS clients are repeat clients, because they appreciate the level and speed of service that they receive.
On a cyber insurance risk profile, having a team like Secure Ideas can help greatly lower your organizations’ costs, while also helping you manage risk at a higher level – and that’s a win-win.