Cybersecurity testing best practices: How to validate your cybersecurity program

Leaders at most businesses and organizations understand the value of cybersecurity assessments and implementing a cybersecurity strategy to counter today’s threats. But how do you know if your cyber defenses are working?

Conducting regular cybersecurity testing can help validate the efficacy of your cybersecurity program, especially if you follow certain testing best practices. Keep reading to learn more about what that means and how to get started.

What is cybersecurity testing?

Cybersecurity testing is the process of intentionally looking for weaknesses or vulnerabilities in your systems, network, facilities and equipment that could expose your business to a cyberattack. A cybersecurity testing process may involve doing a vulnerability assessment, conducting penetration testing, auditing your security protocols for compliance with a standard like SOC 2 or HITRUST and determining how to become a more cyber resilient organization.

Why cybersecurity testing matters

Cybersecurity testing matters because businesses face a complex, dangerous cyber risk environment. Regular testing is a key component of cyber risk management and helps ensure that your business is reducing risk, investing in effective cyber defenses and becoming more resilient against today’s threats.

Reduce business risk

No cyberdefense is perfect, so it is important to think about cybersecurity in terms of managing risk. Testing helps find security gaps that need to be addressed, which reduces your exposure to the financial, operational and reputational risks that go along with a cyber breach.

Improve cyber resilience

A cyber-resilient organization is one that can recover from a cyberattack more quickly and with less operational disruption. Cybersecurity testing helps prepare your team to respond to an actual incident, while also uncovering potential weak spots like a lack of data backups that could interfere with your incident recovery.

Strengthen regulatory compliance

Many businesses need to comply with either industry-specific cybersecurity regulatory requirements or a third-party security framework like SOC 2. Undergoing regular testing helps demonstrate compliance in either scenario.

Validate security assessments

If you’re conducting a strategic cyber risk assessment, testing can help validate the findings that emerge from that process. Testing also provides ongoing security validation to demonstrate whether your current defenses are up to par.

Types of cybersecurity testing

Cybersecurity testing can involve several types of tests designed to help you understand whether your cyber defenses are effective and find security gaps. These include vulnerability assessments, penetration testing and security audits:

• Vulnerability assessments: Vulnerability assessments involve a systematic review of potential security weaknesses in your systems. Various types of assessments exist, including host assessments, network and wireless assessments, database assessments and application scans.
• Automated testing: Automated testing, such as vulnerability scans, can search for known and common vulnerabilities in applications and compare them against a database of vulnerable programs.
• Penetration testing: Penetration testing, also known as ethical hacking or pen testing, involves authorized attempts to breach system security. This method simulates real-world cyberattacks to evaluate your defenses. These tests offer a deeper assessment than automated tools, focusing on identifying complex or unknown vulnerabilities that may elude standard scans.
• Security audits: A cybersecurity audit is a formal process conducted by an independent third-party organization. It acts as a checklist to validate an organization’s cybersecurity policies and procedures. Security audits can provide a snapshot of your cybersecurity health and help you identify any gaps that need remediation.
• Tabletop exercise: A tabletop exercise involves sitting down with your team and running through how you would respond to a cyberattack. This is essentially a dress rehearsal for the real thing and can help speed up your response time and avoid confusion.

Cybersecurity testing best practices

Successful cybersecurity testing will typically follow several best practices. These include:

Focus on proactive risk management

Many businesses tackle cybersecurity strictly from a compliance standpoint — or only after an incident occurs. Taking a proactive approach that recognizes the value of preemptively managing cyber risk both reduces the likelihood an attack will occur and helps your business bounce back faster if it does.

Don’t rely on automated testing

Automated testing, like a virus scan, can be a useful tool to check for certain common threats or vulnerabilities. But relying only on automated testing can leave you exposed to risks it can’t catch, as well as limit your ability to think strategically about cyber risk.

Implement regular manual testing

Manual testing — like a vulnerability assessment, penetration testing or a security audit — is essential to implementing a mature cybersecurity program to protect your business. But doing a single penetration test once a year isn’t worth much. Instead, conduct regular manual testing exercises to help ensure you are managing the current threat environment appropriately.

Work with a third-party cybersecurity tester

Your IT team typically wears many hats, only one of which is cybersecurity. By contrast, a third-party cybersecurity advisor does nothing else. Working with a third-party tester during your testing process can deliver significantly more effective outcomes, finding vulnerabilities you might otherwise miss, recommending new cybersecurity controls and helping you adopt a more strategic defense posture.

Look at cybersecurity as a process, not an event

Cybersecurity isn’t something you do once a year or even once a month. It should be integrated into your everyday business operations, both in the form of regular manual and automated testing and through ongoing training efforts to keep security top of mind for your team.

Consider cyber resilience in your testing process

When you’re conducting cyber testing, consider not just whether your defenses are adequate, but how well your organization is prepared to respond to and recover from an attack. Strengthening cyber resilience includes testing activities like tabletop exercises, as well as establishing data backups and system redundancies to avoid prolonged disruptions should an attack occur.

Steps to building a risk-based cybersecurity testing program

Implementing a risk-based cybersecurity strategy that includes regular testing will increase your organization’s cyber readiness. Here are key steps to help you get started:

1. Identify critical assets

Identify the systems, networks, facilities, software and equipment you wish to test. This should include anything that’s critical to your operations or to the protection of your data.

2. Define testing objectives

Set clear objectives for what you want to test for. Doing this will help ensure your testing stays focused and produces measurable, actionable outcomes.

3. Select the right testing methods

Choose the right tool or method to conduct each test. For example, if you want to assess whether your core systems are secure, you would need to do a penetration test where an ethical hacker would attempt to gain access.

4. Prioritize remediation

Investing in testing is a waste of resources unless you act on what you learn. Prioritize remediating any critical gaps identified during testing, while considering others in the context of your overall cyber risk management strategy.

5. Measure and improve over time

By making testing a regular, ongoing process, you’ll be able to track your improvements over time. This helps you demonstrate your security maturity to stakeholders like your board, investors, customers and regulators while continuing to manage your cybersecurity risk.

FAQ about cybersecurity testing

Here are key answers to frequently asked questions about cybersecurity testing:

How often should organizations perform cybersecurity testing?

At a minimum, organizations should conduct annual security testing that includes a vulnerability assessment and penetration testing to validate that assessment. However, high-risk industries or businesses that are rapidly changing should do so more frequently, perhaps on a quarterly basis.

What is the difference between a vulnerability assessment and a penetration test?

A vulnerability assessment studies your systems, network and other risk points to find potential vulnerabilities. A penetration test involves actively trying to hack your current cyber defenses to test a weak spot or validate a vulnerability uncovered during the assessment.

What types of cybersecurity testing should organizations perform?

Organizations should perform both manual and automated cybersecurity testing. Automated testing, like a virus scan, is useful, but is no substitute for active manual testing. The latter, which includes activities like a vulnerability assessment, penetration testing or a security audit, can find gaps or vulnerabilities that an automated test can’t as well as recommend stronger controls.

How Wipfli can help

We conduct cybersecurity testing and advise organizations on managing cybersecurity risk. Let’s talk about how we can help make your organization more secure. Start a conversation.

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Read more

• A cybersecurity risk management guide for business leaders
• Your business needs a cyber resilience strategy. Here’s why.
• Cybersecurity risk assessments: How to get started with yours