Begin by truly understanding your core business, your purpose and your mission. Why does your company exist? What's the value they provide? Than, identify what is critical to be able to fulfill that mission and take steps to create redundancies across different locations and vendors to ensure you stay in business. Everything else, comes after that.

To prioritize cybersecurity threats, I begin by identifying the assets most critical to the business and the potential impact of different risks. I stay informed about the latest threats, work with my team on risk assessments, and ensure compliance with key regulations. My focus is on protecting the most vulnerable areas and balancing strong defenses with quick response readiness. For me, it's all about safeguarding what’s vital while staying agile in a constantly evolving threat landscape.

I will conduct a comprehensive risk assessment to identify and evaluate all potential cybersecurity threats based on their likelihood of occurrence and the severity of their impact on the organization's operations, data, and reputation, in addition to both internal and external threat Next, prioritize the identified threats based on their risk level, taking into account factors such as the criticality of the assets at risk, the organization's risk appetite, and the potential financial and reputational consequences an attack. Align the cybersecurity priorities with the organization's overall business objectives, regulatory requirements, and industry best practices to ensure the IT Strategy addresses the most pressing cybersecurity concerns.

It is important to map out the overall ecosystem of systems within the organization, understand how they are interconnected, and categorize them. By doing so, and understanding the business needs, we can identify which of our systems or processes are most vulnerable or could pose a greater risk to business continuity, data protection, regulatory compliance, and the integrity of the sales process.

Crafting an IT strategy involves balancing urgent and important tasks, especially in dealing with cybersecurity threats. Our team once focused solely on external threats like firewalls and malware, until we fell victim to a simple internal phishing attempt. This incident reminded us that while we were busy securing the front door, someone managed to sneak in through the window. At Sophos, we prioritize threats by analyzing both external and internal risks, using real-time intelligence to monitor global and local trends. We always keep in mind that sometimes the biggest threat is the one we assume won't happen. Our strategy involves constantly adapting, staying vigilant, and ensuring our team is trained to identify everyday risks...

Address security threats at the lowest level possible. If, for instance, data security is addressed at the data strategy / data architecture level, for instance only providing customer identifier data to system that have to use them (e.g. UIs), it already limits risks to fewer systems. Those risks that cannot be addressed at such a basic level should be assessed regarding their severity (potential costs) and probability. Such a matrix will help to prioritise the risks and to address them in the right order.

Conduct a thorough risk assessment that considers the potential impact on operations, reputation, and financial stability. Evaluate the likelihood of each threat occurring based on historical data, industry trends, and current threat intelligence. Perform a cost-benefit analysis to weigh the investment in countermeasures against the potential losses from a successful attack. Ensure compliance with industry-specific regulations and standards, and prioritize the protection of critical assets, such as customer data, intellectual property, and financial information.