Cybersecurity Services: What Your Business Actually Needs vs. What You Are Being Sold
The cybersecurity industry is full of vendors selling solutions to problems you may not have. Here is a practical framework for figuring out what your organization actually needs — and in what order.
By Tom Brennan
Most organizations end up with a collection of security tools that do not talk to each other, covering some threats well and leaving significant gaps unaddressed.
The Prioritization Framework
Before buying anything new, every organization should answer these questions in order:
- What are your highest-value assets? Source code, customer data, financial systems, IP? If you do not know what you are protecting, you cannot prioritize how to protect it.
- What is your threat landscape? A healthcare provider faces different adversaries than a defense contractor.
- What is your current state? A gap assessment against a framework (NIST CSF, CIS Controls) tells you where you are relative to where you need to be.
- What are your regulatory requirements? HIPAA, CMMC, NYDFS 500, PCI-DSS — your compliance obligations create minimum control requirements.
The Most Common Gaps We Find
- Identity and access management — MFA not universally deployed, privileged access not managed
- Incident response — documented plans that have never been tested
- Third-party risk — vendors with access to sensitive systems that have never been assessed
- Security leadership — no one with the authority and expertise to make strategic security decisions
Proactive Risk's approach starts with a gap assessment and risk prioritization, not a product recommendation. Contact us to start with a conversation, not a sales pitch.
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