Balancing Cost, Friction, & Risk in Your Cybersecurity Plan

Finding the right balance between cost, friction, and risk is challenging when creating and implementing a cybersecurity plan.

Implementing inappropriate security measures can create unnecessary friction and slow down operations, while cutting corners can leave your business vulnerable.

Here’s how you can develop a cybersecurity plan that balances cost, unnecessary friction, and risk.

Risk-Based Approach

Adopting a risk-based approach is crucial to developing a strong cybersecurity plan. This starts with conducting a comprehensive risk assessment to identify critical assets, understand threats, and assess vulnerabilities. Once identified, prioritize risks based on their potential impact, the value of mitigating them, and how they align with your overall business goals and strategy.

Calculating the “risk per dollar spent” value ensures you’re addressing threats that could most affect your business’s core objectives, allowing for targeted resource allocation.

Balance Between Security and Usability

When selecting security controls, it’s vital to strike a balance between risk and maintaining operational efficiency. Every control has a cost, both in terms of dollars and its potential to disrupt workflows. Conduct a cost-benefit analysis to evaluate each control’s implementation cost against the risk reduction it offers. Ensure that the chosen security measures do not overly compromise usability, as excessive friction can lead to inefficiencies, user frustration, and possible workarounds that weaken overall security.

While selecting controls, you should prioritize solutions that not only enhance security but improve user convenience. For example, implementing Single Sign-On (SSO) or Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) can streamline login processes, reducing friction for users while strengthening access control. The goal is to make security seamless and intuitive, so users are both more secure and more productive.

Implementation Process: Phased Approach

Cybersecurity controls don’t need to be implemented all at once or universally across all systems. A phased approach allows gradual implementation, minimizing disruption to daily operations. This approach also enables adjustments and optimization of security measures as they are integrated into the business. Partial deployment of certain controls can focus on high-priority systems first, enabling a more controlled and manageable process that aligns with business needs.

For instance, if we can get 80% of employees using 16-character passwords and 20% using 8-character passwords, that’s a significant improvement over having 100% on 8-character passwords. While aiming for “perfect” security is ideal, the key lies in continually enhancing security through consistent improvements.

Governance, Regular Review and Adjustment

Cybersecurity is not a one-time effort rather an ongoing process of reviewing your cybersecurity plan to make sure it meets your business’s needs, without introducing new risks or unnecessary costs. Establish governance practices that include monitoring and measuring risks both pre- and post-implementation, using risk calculations to track the effectiveness of controls. This helps ensure that risk management strategies are continuously aligned with business objectives.

Managing this entire process is something we do for you and with you. Learn more about how Coffer Group can guide you in this by clicking here.