Today’s most successful businesses aren’t just innovative and productive, they also know how to effectively manage risk. This includes the risk of cyber attacks, which are becoming an increasingly likely threat for organizations of all sizes and in all industries.
Properly securing your company from these threats is vital. Cybersecurity consulting services can help you recognize potential vulnerabilities and eliminate them before criminals can strike. Without them, you could be putting your entire business at risk.
What Are Cybersecurity Consulting Services?
Cybersecurity consulting teams evaluate your organization’s security, identify potential issues, estimate risk, and implement and test solutions that will keep your organization, your networks, and your data safe.
There are many variables when it comes to cybersecurity. Experts need to be aware of all potential risks so they can craft effective layers of protection that stop criminals while still allowing the business to easily complete its work.
Successful cybersecurity consultants use a mix of problem solving skills, technological prowess, risk assessment abilities, and communication and teaching skills to keep systems secure. They work in teams to conduct tests, understand potential threats, implement policies and procedures, prevent cyberattacks, and help companies recover from attacks.
What Security Consulting Firms Do
Cybersecurity companies and consultants use strategic thinking and planning to create and maintain solutions that keep companies safe. There are three major areas that a cybersecurity consulting service will focus on: risk prevention, threat detection, and response. Within these three major areas, there are other key duties.
The major responsibilities of a cybersecurity consultant include:
- Conducting Risk Assessments
- A cybersecurity consultant will review your organization’s technology and practices and identify particular vulnerabilities. These vulnerabilities are unique to each organization and include any and all ways that criminals could exploit your organization as well as other potential issues, such as data loss due to hardware failure, human error, etc.
- Developing Security Strategies
- Once completing the security and risk review, the consultant will create security strategies to keep your company safe. As each organization is unique with its own unique risks, strategies must be tailored towards those needs.
- The consultant will also consider the organization’s acceptable risk level, the regulations and requirements that the company must follow, and the company’s objectives when creating a plan.
- Implementing Security Measures
- Creating the plans is only one aspect of the work security consultants perform. Once the strategies are designed, the security consulting team then carries out the plan. This could include installing and configuring firewalls, implementing encryption technology, setting up new security protocols, and performing vulnerability testing, among other tasks.
- Monitoring Activities
- Cybersecurity is not a system or protocol that is installed or set up once and then left alone. Criminals are always looking for new vulnerabilities they can exploit and new methods of attacking. Therefore, it’s critical that there is a plan in place for constantly monitoring activities and making adjustments as needed.
- The cybersecurity team will likely establish a real-time surveillance protocol so they’re able to actively scout for potential vulnerabilities and threats. This enables them to spot potential issues that might signal an impending breach and respond as quickly as possible.
- Responding to Incidents
- Recognizing and responding to cyberattacks is a critical role of a cybersecurity consulting team. Once a breach or potential breach is detected, they will immediately work to prepare the best defense strategy for the situation (using the information and plans created earlier) and either implement the solution or advise the organization’s in-house security team on how to respond.
- Once the incident has been detected and resolved, the consultants present their findings to company management and other stakeholders along with a robust plan for ensuring a similar issue does not happen again.
- Providing Training and Awareness
- In addition to working to develop strategies and security measures, cybersecurity consultants also educate employees about best practices. This is vital because human error is a significant vulnerability and one of the major ways that cyber criminals steal data and gain access to systems.
- This training includes helping employees spot potential phishing scams, giving advice on how to choose strong passwords, helping to secure company devices and increase security for those using their own devices or working remotely, and providing additional information on how teams can protect company data.
They also work to understand a company’s business goals and make sure that their efforts are in line with these goals. This ensures their tactics and strategies are as pragmatic as they are effective.
Understanding Cyber Attacks and Security Strategies
A cyber attack is any attempt to steal data, disable computers or software, or otherwise breach a computer system. Modern cyber attacks are more sophisticated and common than ever before. According to the ITRC Annual Data Breach Report, there were 343,338,964 victims of cyber attacks in 2024. This is why working with a cybersecurity consultant is so critical.
Understanding cyber attacks and how criminals strike can help you understand how to best protect your business.
Some of the most common types of cyber attacks are:
- Malware
- This involves installing malicious software on a computer system. It is the most common type of cyber attack and includes ransomware, trojans, spyware, viruses, worms, keyloggers, bots, and many other types of attacks.
- Phishing scams
- Phishing scams use social engineering to encourage a user to install malicious software or share sensitive information.
- Denial of service (DoS) attacks
- These attacks flood a network with false requests, overwhelming it and disrupting operations.
- Identity-based attacks
- This attack occurs when a user’s account credentials are compromised and a criminal pretends to be a valid user in order to exploit vulnerabilities, access sensitive data, etc.
- Code injection attacks
- Attackers inject malicious code into a vulnerable computer or network to conduct nefarious activities.
Cybersecurity experts work to stay ahead of criminals and protect devices and systems. They employ strategies to strengthen defenses and keep computers, systems, networks, and people safe.
They also keep systems up to date, educate users about cybersecurity risks, and create comprehensive backups that can be restored if there is a serious issue or crime, so that the business can continue operating.
Choosing the Right Cybersecurity Consulting Provider
Finding a cybersecurity consulting firm that can provide your business with the level of security you need is a critical step.
Some smaller organizations think they won’t be targets for criminals because they’re too small or their data isn’t important enough. Unfortunately, that isn’t true. Cyber criminals today understand the incredible value of a company’s data. Even smaller organizations have access to client information, financial details, market research, and other sensitive data. Not only are these details valuable to criminals, who can sell them on the black market or use the data to commit crimes such as identity theft, but they know how vital data is to the business that holds it.
That’s why ransomware and other similar schemes happen so often. Criminals know that a company will operate at a significant disadvantage if it cannot access its data or its systems. In fact, there is a significant chance that this company won’t survive without its critical information. Criminals recognize this and hold valuable data for ransom in hopes of collecting a significant payment.
Protecting your business is vital and, therefore, choosing the right cybersecurity consulting provider is one of the most important decisions you can make. The team at Oppuous is here to help you find the provider that is right for you. Contact us today with any questions you may have. We’re here to help your business stay safe, secure, and efficient.
