Cybersecurity is critical for financial organizations. To enable such goals, financial organizations should align cybersecurity with business goals. This post provides a guide to aligning cybersecurity to business goals for financial organizations.
In today’s digital landscape, businesses, including financial organizations, depend heavily on technology. This technology dependence opens organizations to cyber threats, which have several consequences for financial organizations. Such consequences include financial penalties, data breaches, loss of business reputation, litigation, and even business shutdowns.
According to Statistica, roughly 65 percent of financial organizations worldwide reported experiencing a ransomware attack in 2024. Financial organizations are vulnerable to cyber threats not just because of the economic gains alone but also because they have access to sensitive data, which may be the target of malicious hackers.
Cybersecurity is often viewed as a preventative measure to avoid cyber attacks. However, it should also be an enabler for financial organizations. Aligning cybersecurity with business goals can bridge the gap between cybersecurity as a preventive measure and enabling the organization.
5 Ways Financial Organizations Can Align Cybersecurity With Business Goals
Due to technological advances, cybersecurity is critical for financial organizations. However, financial organizations must not sacrifice cybersecurity for other business goals. To ensure that cybersecurity is an enabler and facilitator for your organization, you must align cybersecurity with your business goals. This will ensure that cybersecurity helps to protect your financial organization and supports business growth, innovation, and customer satisfaction. Here are ways financial organizations can align cybersecurity with business goals.
Prioritize Business Goals and Objectives
Every financial organization has its goals and objectives. These goals can include business growth, enhancing customer satisfaction, or innovation. As a business, you must prioritize these objectives to align them with cybersecurity. Cybersecurity can play a vital role in achieving these goals and objectives by protecting data, maintaining customer trust, and contributing to business continuity. As a financial organization stakeholder, you should communicate your business goals and objectives to security professionals to ensure alignment with cybersecurity.
Identify and Prioritize Business Assets
For financial organizations, business assets can include customer data, financial records, sensitive information, operational systems, etc. Financial organizations must identify their assets to align business goals with cybersecurity. Understanding what needs to be protected in your business will empower you to channel resources to execute targeted security measures, which will, in turn, point back to your financial organization’s goals and objectives.
Identify How Cybersecurity Enables Business Outcomes
Financial organizations can map security measures to business outcomes by examining each goal and identifying security issues that can impede its achievement. By considering each goal, the security experts of your financial organization can assess how data breaches, cybersecurity regulations, and malware attacks can impact the organization’s objectives. When such proactive steps are taken, cybersecurity can align with business goals and support the achievement of those goals.
Risk Assessment
Regular risk assessment is crucial for financial organizations to align cybersecurity with business goals. Risk assessments help organizations identify potential threats and vulnerabilities. Such risk assessments empower financial organizations to mitigate cyber threats by implementing strategies tailored to their business needs. Risk assessment and mitigation help financial organizations avoid cyber attacks that could derail business goals and objectives.
Automate Cybersecurity
When financial organizations automate cybersecurity, it helps free up time and resources. Cybersecurity automation also helps to reduce or eliminate human error. When cybersecurity automation is in place, the time and valuable resources freed up can be channelled into executing other business operations to achieve business goals and objectives. With automation, financial organizations can also ensure that proper investment is made into cybersecurity to achieve business goals.
How Support Link Technologies Can Help Financial Organizations Align Cybersecurity With Business Goals
At Support Link Technologies, we understand the terrain of increased potential cyber attacks on financial organisations. We know how important it is for your organisation to align cybersecurity to your business goals, not just for preventative measures but to achieve business goals. We offer services tailored to your organisation’s needs to achieve goals and objectives. This includes cybersecurity strategies, training, risk assessments, and cybersecurity automation.
Conclusion
Financial organizations are prone to cyber-attacks. Cybersecurity is critical for financial organizations to mitigate such attacks. This post has described five ways financial organisations can align cybersecurity with their business goals and how Support Link Technologies can support them by aligning cybersecurity with their business goals. Contact us today at Support Link Technologies’ to support your financial organization to align cybersecurity with your business goals through our specialized services and training.