Why Your Business Needs an Information Security Program

Whether you’re a small business owner, you’re expanding, or operating at the national level, we want to talk about why your business needs an Information Security program. This is an expanded version of what we wrote in 2024 which you can find here.

This expansion is appropriate because the Information Security landscape has changed since 2024.

An Information Security program isn’t just for Fortune 500 companies.

Whether you’re a small or medium sized business, things have changed.

Your customer expectations are changing. You’re probably now dealing with AI powered scams/malware, or changes in your business insurance, or extreme weather. And to top it all off, you may now find yourself with compliance needs where that wasn’t on your radar a few years ago.

Lets start with compliance first.

Increasing compliance

As more data privacy laws go into effect for different states, or bills are being voted on, or drafted, your business may find itself needing to comply with these laws. This means adopting cybersecurity frameworks to offload some of the risk you carry.

It’s not only data privacy laws at the state level, or complying with anything the Federal government mandates, that compels your business to protect data. There are other driving forces.

You may need to prove to your insurance carrier that you have certain controls in place.

Your customers may have certain security requirements for hardware/software and services that you’ll need to meet to close the sale.

If you’re wanting to do business with a certain entity you may need to show that you have controls, policies, and procedures in place in order to work with them.

Maybe you’re preparing to sell your business or part of it. Showing you’ve done due diligence may put you in a better position for getting the price you want for your company.

Having a cybersecurity framework in place for the things we mentioned above will set you up for success. Don’t know what a cybersecurity framework is? Check out our article on them and what to expect.

Protecting Business Operations

Your business has a lot to defend against, and protect, to ensure it’s able to operate. There’s malware, social engineering, denial of service attacks, and malicious insider threats that can take a toll on your business’s ability to operate. There’s also things like natural disasters, third party service outages, power outages, and network outages that you need to plan for. Failed backups, patches that cause issues, or employees adding personal devices to your network are also some things to contend with.

Rather than being reactive to incidents, having an Information Security program in place helps you identify where risk exists in your organization.

This then allows you to establish policies, procedures, and controls to mitigate risk in a proactive way. We’re not saying this will solve all of your problems, but when you experience a business disruption you’ve put yourself in a position for a better recovery as opposed to having nothing in place.

For your business to survive and thrive, it’s having an Information Security program that meets the needs of your organization. As an example, if you’re a small business owner, one thing you have to contend with is your budget. You’re program will be more on the cost effective side of things to help you get up and running quickly when recovering from an incident.

For larger businesses, and those that deal with sensitive information, your program may be more robust because you have more to protect and this is where compliance becomes a factor.

Keeping Up With Evolving Threats

Having knowledge of what’s happening in your industry and beyond is important. It can be as simple as reading security news sources to finding industry threat intelligence sources. The threat landscape continues to evolve. New Social Engineering and phishing techniques are discovered. You, or your team, need to see if any vulnerabilities are published that might affect you so that you have plans to mitigate the problem. We are dealing with A.I. now and it’s important to understand how this technology impacts your organization.

To expand on the A.I threat a little more, businesses like yours need to keep an eye out for things like:

• Bad actors creating malware with A.I.

• Indirect prompt injections

• A.I. enhanced phishing

• Deepfake audio/video phishing campaigns

A.I. helps threat actors quickly scale their attacks.

Some SMBs might not be aware of, or ready for, A.I. driven disinformation campaigns that affect brand reputation.

We played out a hypothetical disinformation scenario targeting a business with a fake news article. Once the disinformation campaign drops, the damage is done before your business can address the issue. Your brand reputation takes a hit and that is devastating.

Your Employees Are Part of Your Information Security Program

Your employees are part of your frontline defense to protecting the company.

Your program must include security awareness training not just once a year, but have multiple touch points throughout as threats change and evolve.

Our training is custom and we cover topics such as:

• A.I.: This includes things like scams, ethics/bias, attacks, and visibility

• Social Engineering

• Safe browsing

• Using OSINT/SOCMINT to look for and investigate threats.

One other important thing is you need to create a culture of openness so that employees feel safe and comfortable to report an incident without fear of losing their job. Anyone can fall for a phishing attempt. You’re employees need to know they can come forward without judgment if they fell for something or if they found something they suspect is malicious.

Invest In Your Information Security Program

Don’t treat security as an expense. In fact things get way more expensive for your business if you’re not proactive about it.

Without having controls, policies, and procedures in place your organization may experience:

• Downtime resulting from an incident: An incident could be a breach, a weather incident, or outage. That costs money to recover from.

• Legal fees/fines: If you’re required to be complaint, but aren’t, and you get breached, expect punitive fines or having to pay out a judgment to the injured party.

• Loss of customer trust: Breaches and disinformation have a knack for whittling away your customer base.

Your Next Steps

Your business may not share the same type of risk, budget, or compliance requirements as others. This is why Information Security programs can’t be one-size-fits-all. It must be tailored to your organization’s needs.

So here are your next steps.

First, we invite you to explore our business services.

Lastly, if you’re building your first Information Security program or if you’re looking to strengthen your current one, we’re here to help you reach your goal.

Reach out to us in the contact form below to schedule a free strategy call to get the ball rolling.

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