{"id":6641,"date":"2026-01-21T06:30:00","date_gmt":"2026-01-21T06:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cybersecurityinfocus.com\/?p=6641"},"modified":"2026-01-21T06:30:00","modified_gmt":"2026-01-21T06:30:00","slug":"for-cyber-risk-assessments-frequency-is-essential","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cybersecurityinfocus.com\/?p=6641","title":{"rendered":"For cyber risk assessments, frequency is essential"},"content":{"rendered":"
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From a certain age, many people regularly visit their doctor for check-ups. In this way, risks and dangers can be identified early and appropriate measures taken.<\/p>\n

The same applies to cybersecurity: Regular risk assessments help security teams identify vulnerabilities and areas for improvement. Unfortunately, such assessments are not carried out universally.<\/p>\n

Advantages of a cyber risk assessment<\/h2>\n

CISOs benefit from the following advantages when they integrate cybersecurity risk assessments into their work:<\/p>\n

Identifying vulnerabilities:<\/strong>\u00a0A cyber risk assessment helps to identify security gaps in a company\u2019s IT infrastructure, networks, and systems. This provides the opportunity to eliminate these vulnerabilities before they can be exploited by cybercriminals.<\/p>\n

Prioritize risk management measures:<\/strong>\u00a0Not every system is critical, and not all of a company\u2019s data is equally important. The results of the risk assessment clarify which assets and systems are most critical and at the highest risk of attack. Based on this, security managers can prioritize their measures and thus allocate their resources more effectively to address the most critical risks first.<\/p>\n

Meeting compliance requirements:<\/strong>\u00a0Almost every company must comply with various data protection and data security regulations, such as the GDPR or the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS). Many of these legal requirements explicitly demand specific risk assessments, such as a data protection impact assessment under the GDPR. Risk assessments help to meet the compliance requirements of various regulations. This ensures that the necessary security standards are met and that potential fines or legal consequences for violations are avoided.<\/p>\n

Make smart decisions and reduce costs:<\/strong>\u00a0Cyber \u200b\u200brisk assessments give companies a comprehensive understanding of their cyber risks. This allows them to make informed decisions about risk mitigation strategies, thereby reducing the likelihood of a successful and costly cyberattack. Furthermore, it enables them to make targeted and therefore more effective investments in their cybersecurity.<\/p>\n

A look at data risk<\/h2>\n

The target of most cyberattacks is a company\u2019s data \u2014 with enormously costly consequences: According to IBM\u2019s\u00a0Cost of a Data Breach Report 2025<\/a>, a data breach caused an average of $4.44 million in damages. Therefore, it is crucial to take a close look at data and the risks it faces.<\/p>\n

This is all the more important because, unlike infrastructure and other systems, data is not \u201cuncompromising.\u201d Servers can be reconfigured, cloud instances rebuilt. But once stolen, data remains in the hands of cybercriminals. Backups offer no protection against this.<\/p>\n

An analysis of nearly 10 billion cloud objects, conducted as part of data risk assessments at more than 700 companies across various industries worldwide, reveals the risks that data is generally exposed to. According to the analysis, one in 10 data sets in the cloud is accessible to all employees. This creates an internal radius that significantly increases the potential damage from a ransomware attack.<\/p>\n

However, a lack of multifactor authentication (MFA) also makes it easier for attackers to compromise internally exposed data:\u00a0Microsoft<\/a>\u00a0has found that more than 99% of compromised accounts do not have MFA.<\/p>\n

Conclusion<\/h2>\n

These general findings already highlight the biggest problem areas. Nevertheless, it is important to determine the individual data risk and identify weaknesses within the framework of a data risk assessment.<\/p>\n

Companies typically don\u2019t know what data they possess, where it\u2019s stored, or who has access to it. Only with this fundamental information can they identify their risks and take targeted measures. The time investment is manageable, at around two to four hours, and a comprehensive report provides immediately actionable recommendations. Furthermore, the assessment process often uncovers additional security issues, ranging from ongoing cyberattacks to Kerberos passwords that are up to 15 years old.<\/p>\n

Regularly conducted cyber risk assessments allow for clear and verifiable documentation of progress in data security \u2014 also for management. CISOs finally have a tool at their disposal that makes their cybersecurity successes visible.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From a certain age, many people regularly visit their doctor for check-ups. In this way, risks and dangers can be identified early and appropriate measures taken. The same applies to cybersecurity: Regular risk assessments help security teams identify vulnerabilities and areas for improvement. Unfortunately, such assessments are not carried out universally. Advantages of a cyber […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":6642,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6641","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-education"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cybersecurityinfocus.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6641"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cybersecurityinfocus.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cybersecurityinfocus.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cybersecurityinfocus.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6641"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cybersecurityinfocus.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6641\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cybersecurityinfocus.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6642"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cybersecurityinfocus.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6641"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cybersecurityinfocus.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6641"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cybersecurityinfocus.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6641"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}