Building Security into Your Company—Even if It’s Not in Scope

On-going costs can also escalate, such as legacy system support contracts that unexpectedly spike. There are frequently cases where end-users inadvertently spread security vulnerabilities within the corporate network—expanding the attack surface area and forcing IT to expend resources to protect digital assets.  

IT can’t blame the business for things like these, and they can’t blame end-users; after all, they are only human! But what the IT team can do is take the necessary steps each time new technologies are deployed or when existing IT systems go through an upgrade or an extension. That’s when it’s important to consider the cost for augmenting any related security controls and making sure security is part of the project scope.  

Whenever technology changes, security must change as well!  

Giving Executives Information to Make Buying Decisions 

Additional costs due to security might also put you in a position where you lack the necessary budget. So as you submit proposals to tackle IT issues, the key is to prep your proposal to empower the executives who make the buying decisions.  Give them data that shows how you measure IT risks and then demonstrate the new risks to the company that the IT initiative will introduce.  

Also, give your C-suite team a choice of solutions for IT initiatives that will solve the given problem and assign a risk value to each of those solutions—along with the cost to mitigate the risk. You may uncover, for example, that the lowest-cost solution for connecting employees remotely also carries the most risk.   

The cost to mitigate that risk could push the total cost of ownership (TCO) of that solution higher than the TCO of the other potential solutions. By taking this approach, you are not only being proactive about security but also giving executives the information they need to make the decision on the security component.   

A Handy Tool for Securing Your Budget 

Many infosec professionals have taken on the budget challenge by turning to Technium’s Security Advisory & Maintenance (SAM) solution. It’s ideal for factoring the cost of security into your IT projects.   

Our enterprise-level security experts analyze how to fortify your IT systems based on your current environment and then provide an action plan on how to get where you need to be, including the costs of various solutions. We don’t box you into vendor-specific security solutions; instead, we enable you to strategically plan for ways to operationalize security around your IT systems.  

SAM also includes scheduled assessments and maintenance. Along the way, if any security breaches occur, we leverage the vital information each incident provides. This includes conducting post-mortem analysis to generate data showing why a breach happened and what needs to be done to prevent similar breaches from happening again.  

In the end, you get options as to how to handle and how to pay for security. You will also be able to inform your C-suite of the risk and the cost of each option. Ultimately, that helps you secure the security budget you need!