Benchmarking, checkboxes and cyber hygiene

It’s often said that the cybersecurity and data privacy worlds rely too much on checkbox compliance exercises – and fail to get to grips with the real issues that put data and systems at risk.

But how true is that? Organisations face both increasing threats and increasing regulatory burdens. And often, CISOs and other business leaders lack a true picture of good practice.

This has prompted security researchers at Panaseer to develop a series of real-world security benchmarks.

The research came up with 18 steps, that look more deeply at security standards and controls. The paper also sheds light on why some organisations still fail to carry out basic cyber hygiene measures, and how businesses can improve.

We asked the report’s author, Charlotte Jupp, to explain the ideas behind the research.