Cybersecurity has become a top priority among businesses — and for good reason. Research shows that cyber attacks cost small- and medium-sized businesses over $2 million per year. If your business sustains a cyber attack, you’ll have to exhaust time and resources to recover from it. You can protect your business from cyber attacks, however, by developing a continuous monitoring plan. What is a continuous monitoring plan exactly?
The Basics of a Continuous Monitoring Plan
A continuous monitoring plan is a comprehensive cybersecurity plan that’s customized for your business’s information technology (IT) infrastructure. It’s a requirement of the Risk Management Framework (RMF). To comply with the RMF, you’ll need to develop a continuous monitoring plan.
While no two continuous monitoring plans are exactly the same, they all include information about a business’s IT infrastructure and how to protect it. Among other things, they should provide a list of all users and their respective privileges. A continuous monitoring plan should also include known vulnerabilities, potential vulnerabilities, safeguards, encryption methods and other information.
Why Your Business Needs a Continuous Monitoring Plan
By developing a continuous monitoring plan, your business will have a stronger IT infrastructure that’s better protected against cyber attacks. IT infrastructures are complex. Depending on the size of your business, it may have dozens of local computers, mobile devices and remote servers. With so many different endpoints, there’s an inherent risk of a cyber attack.
A continuous monitoring plan can protect your business from cyber attacks by providing insight into its IT infrastructure. You’ll be able to see vulnerabilities affecting your business’s IT infrastructure, for instance. After identifying them, you can then take the necessary steps to eliminate them.
Tips on How to Develop a Continuous Monitoring Plan
When developing a continuous monitoring plan, you’ll need to evaluate each system or segment of your business’s IT infrastructure. If your business is small, it may only have a single office with an equally small IT infrastructure. Large businesses, on the other hand, typically have larger IT infrastructures that encompass more devices. Regardless, developing a continuous monitoring plan requires a thorough evaluation of your business’s IT infrastructure and the vulnerabilities that affect it.
You should also update your business’s continuous monitoring plan regularly. It’s known as a “continuous monitoring plan” because it requires “continuous” updating. As your business’s IT infrastructure changes, it may be introduced to new vulnerabilities. For an effective continuous monitoring plan, you’ll need to include these new vulnerabilities.
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