As much as the workplace and cybersecurity landscape has continued to evolve over the years, one thing that has remained constant is that many of us don’t have enough time in our days to finish all the items on our to-do lists. Applying time management to your cybersecurity efforts can help you document, tackle, and complete needed tasks.
Identifying security priorities and accomplishing them while working to maintain day-to-day operations can be a huge challenge for companies with just one or two IT people on staff. How does your company keep working towards establishing better cybersecurity controls and systems, while also handling trouble tickets, creating user accounts, onboarding new team members, and more?
Project management based approach
Following a structured process can be a good start to helping you achieve your goals.
Determine your end goal – As with any project, in order to achieve success, you need to figure out your desired end state. Find out what’s important in your company–whether it’s getting a higher SPRS score, achieving CMMC 2.0, or some other business requirement. From an enterprise security and compliance standpoint, focusing on meeting the requirements on NIST 800-171 is always a good idea.
Know your current state – Conduct an assessment to identify where your organization is in terms of meeting your objectives. Identify non-compliant items using a gap analysis to pinpoint all the areas where your company is not in compliance with your targeted goal. This analysis can be conducted by your internal team or by an outside expert, like CyberSheath.
Build your priority list – Based on your analysis, your next step is to build out a plan to specify when and how you will take care of all outstanding items. This plan of action and milestones (POAM), contains a list of each noncompliant item, outlines what you need to do to become compliant, and specifies targeted deadlines for item completion.
Partner with a provider to get it done faster
If you don’t have the time as a company to conduct an assessment, build a POAM, or tackle any of the action items, consider outsourcing these important tasks. Enlisting the support of a managed security service provider can help your company move more quickly and knock out some of the outstanding items on your priority list.
We’re here to help. Contact CyberSheath if you have any questions about how to achieve your cybersecurity goals.