Ensuring robust cybersecurity measures is imperative given the constant evolution and increasing sophistication of cyber attacks perpetrated by malicious actors. There are constant threats such as data breaches and malware that could be detrimental to your business and your customers or clients. Cybersecurity breaches pose a significant risk to businesses of all sizes, including large corporations, as evidenced by numerous high-profile attacks. It is essential for every business to establish a comprehensive cybersecurity strategy and assemble a capable team dedicated to managing and safeguarding their digital security.
In this guide, we will explain the steps to creating a successful cybersecurity team that will protect your business from cyber threats and data breaches. You can also work with a third-party cybersecurity specialist like PSM Partners to ensure that your business is protected by professionals.
Building Your Cybersecurity Team
Maintaining strong cybersecurity is critical for any business, and having a dedicated team to implement and manage your security protocols is essential. If your business lacks a cybersecurity leader, it’s crucial to assemble a team of skilled professionals to ensure a solid security strategy. If you already have a cybersecurity team, now is an opportune time to evaluate their performance and identify areas for improvement to enhance your overall security posture.
The following steps will help you build and improve your cybersecurity team:
1.Evaluate Strengths and Weaknesses
Before you start looking for candidates to build or enhance your cybersecurity team, you should first evaluate your current strengths and weaknesses. Your company should do an honest evaluation of your IT so you can get an accurate idea of what you are doing well, and which areas need improvement. The best way to find out where your vulnerabilities and weaknesses are is to perform a cybersecurity assessment. Knowing your vulnerabilities and weaknesses will help you make the right moves to stay ahead of potential threats and assess how extensive your team may need to be.
2.Look for Candidates with Core Cybersecurity Skills
It is natural to start a search for cybersecurity professionals by checking the credentials of each candidate. While having an education and training is important, it is not credentials that make the best cybersecurity candidate. Those who receive a technical degree or certification in cybersecurity learn skills and strategies that may be several years behind by the time they complete their education or training. It is in your best interest to consider real-world experience and expertise when reviewing candidates. The most valuable cybersecurity candidates should have the skillset to think outside the box and solve problems.
Instead of focusing on credentials, you should focus on the following core cybersecurity skills and how they can meet the needs of your business:
- Expert analysis, diagnoses, and detection of security risks
- Skills in software development
- Thorough understanding of network architecture
- Good collaboration and communication skills
- Willingness to keep up with and understand the latest trends and developments in cybersecurity
3.Train and Upskill Your Current Cybersecurity Team
As you look for outside cybersecurity talent to enhance your team, you should also train and improve your current team. Offering training opportunities will give your current team members a chance to progress in their careers and save your business the time and money it takes to hire and onboard new recruits. Having internal training in place may also lead to more talented applicants as the opportunity to move up and progress within a company is an attractive benefit, especially if your company covers the cost of the training and qualifications.
When creating job listings for cybersecurity talent, make sure to highlight the opportunity for professional development as well as any long-term career opportunities you can offer.
4.Find Candidates with Complimentary Skills
Each business and organization has unique needs when it comes to cybersecurity. It is important to look for candidates that have the skillset to accommodate the unique needs of your business and complement the dynamic and skills of your current team. All of the members of your cybersecurity team should have core skills, but building a team of individuals with a diverse range of skills beyond the core skills will keep your business better protected from ever-evolving cyber threats.
Taking the extra time to find and invest in cybersecurity talent that best complements your current team and operation will pay off in the long run.
How to Find a Leader for Your Cybersecurity Team
There is currently a high demand for IT and cybersecurity talent but there are more unfilled cybersecurity positions than there are talented candidates to fill those positions. This makes it very important for businesses and organizations to attract, identify, and hire the best candidates.
To be more effective, your cybersecurity team needs a good leader that can form a strategy and guide your team in implementing that strategy to best protect your business and align with business requirements. If you are looking to hire a cybersecurity leader from outside your company, you should look for a candidate with the following traits.
1.Well-Rounded Team Player
The leader of your cybersecurity team should be someone with a well-rounded set of skills to help your team tackle any issues you may encounter. The candidate should not only feel comfortable taking the lead in response to a problem, but also be able to lower the stress and anxiety of the situation to accurately diagnose the problem and come up with effective solutions. Their range of skills should allow them to navigate any security issues you face with confidence.
The ideal cybersecurity leader should also be a team player and feel comfortable talking to company leaders, stakeholders, and customers. They should be able to clearly communicate with management and turn customer feedback into actions to improve your cybersecurity.
2.Easy to Approach
The ideal candidate to lead your cybersecurity team should not only have good communication skills, but also be easy to approach. The leader may have to answer for any issues that come up and reassure leadership within your company and your customers so that they have confidence in your cybersecurity strategy.
The candidate should also be empathetic and demonstrate an understanding of the pain points and priorities of the team leaders within your organization and of your customers. This will allow your cybersecurity leader to implement strategies to align with your company wide goals.
3.Ability to Manage Cybersecurity Experts
As discussed in the previous section, your cybersecurity team should consist of experts that all have core skills, but a diverse set of expertise to tackle different aspects of your cybersecurity management. As you continue to build your cybersecurity team, you will likely end up with customer security experts that help secure software and applications, detection and response specialists who respond to issues, and governance, risk, and compliance (GRC) experts that look for internal and external vulnerabilities and risks.
An effective cybersecurity leader should be able to manage these cybersecurity experts and help align the work they do so your entire cybersecurity team is working together to implement an effective, holistic cybersecurity strategy that aligns with your company’s goals.
4.Implements Proactive and Reactive Strategies
An effective cybersecurity team should be able to accomplish two main objectives: strengthen weaknesses and vulnerabilities to help prevent cyberattacks and respond effectively to minimize the damage and speed up the recovery when a cyberattack occurs.
Your overall cybersecurity strategy should consist of both proactive and reactive strategies for the best level of protection. Proactive strategies include strategies that reduce the risk of cyberattacks such as monitoring for vulnerabilities and implementing protective measures. Reactive strategies include processes for responding to incidents in a timely yet effective manner to neutralize the threat and protect business and customer data.
A good cybersecurity leader should be able to oversee both proactive and reactive strategies so that your cybersecurity team is always actively protecting your IT infrastructure and is ready to react in case of an incident.
5.Strong Communication and Interpersonal Skills
To effectively implement proactive and reactive strategies and ensure a harmonious relationship between the different experts on your cybersecurity team, the leader must have strong communication and interpersonal skills. They must be able to not only prioritize and implement strategies that best accomplish your company’s goals, but also gain a consensus and keep the cybersecurity team aligned internally.
A good cybersecurity leader will help create a team culture of internal alignment and help attract and hire new cybersecurity talent that fits into this culture. They should also display a strong sense of ethics and integrity to always make the best decision to protect your business, stakeholders, and customers.
6.Operational Transparency
There is a lot at stake when it comes to cybersecurity as any issues could impact your business, stakeholders, and customers or clients. Cybersecurity strategies should be driven from the top down directly supported by stakeholders, so when the cybersecurity leader needs to be transparent, it should already be approved and in motion, and not a surprise to anyone in the company.
Transparency about current strategies can help reassure your business leaders, customers, and stakeholders that you are taking the proper steps to keep your IT infrastructure secure. It is also important to be transparent when a security breach happens so that everyone involved knows exactly what is going on and what is being done to resolve the issue. This level of transparency builds trust and gives your customers and stakeholders confidence in your company’s ability to protect sensitive data.
Cybersecurity Services from PSM
Cyber attacks are constantly evolving and becoming more sophisticated which makes it necessary for businesses to have a dynamic cybersecurity team that can best protect from threats. Building a talented cybersecurity team and finding the right leader for your team will ensure that your business has a strategy in place to reduce the risk of attacks and be able to respond if an attack occurs.
Another option you have available to you is to work with a third-party IT professional to take over and manage your cybersecurity. At PSM, our cybersecurity experts can provide managed IT security services in which we will implement proactive strategies and monitor your system to identify and address weaknesses and vulnerabilities. We will take the time to understand your current IT infrastructure as well as your company goals when it comes to cybersecurity to incorporate them into our cybersecurity strategy.
You can call our professionals at PSM at (312) 940-7830 for more information about our cybersecurity services in the Chicago, IL area.