Source, Select, Build: A Guide to Creating Your Own Cybersecurity Team

By the time the global population reaches eight billion in 2022, 75% of us will have connected with the internet. While there are many benefits to having access online, it also means six billion of us will now be at risk to online hackers.

It doesn’t matter if someone runs a small blog with 10 readers or manages a global corporation, or if you’re 11 years old or 80—everyone is at risk. 

If you own a company, the risks are greater than ever. Which is why it’s important to plan ahead. Building your cybersecurity team up the right way should be your number one priority as we head into the future.

To help ensure you create a dream-team of top professionals in cybersecurity, keep reading.

Look Within Your Own Company

One of the easiest ways to find quality employees when sourcing your cybersecurity team is to look inside your own company. If you’re already working with a team, there’s a reason you hired them. 

This allows your internal staff the ability to increase and expand their skills. It also saves your company time and money because they’re already familiar with how your company works. 

A new hire from the outside means extra time to catch up while an inside promotion means that employee can simply hit the ground running. 

Expand Your Pipeline

Even if you’re happy with your current cybersecurity team, it’s always a smart idea to keep expanding your external pipeline.

Look for people who come from diverse backgrounds as they can help bring new ideas to your company. 

Reduce the Risks

Cybersecurity isn’t just about working internally with a team of professionals. The risks affect everyone.

No matter how large and effective your cybersecurity team already is, growing your partnerships to other companies will greatly help reduce the amount of risk you’re exposed to.

Your information security team will tell you that there’s no way to reduce your cybersecurity risk to 100%. There will always be holes in your security system.

However, when you work with your team and outside vendors, it can help you determine which are the greatest risks at any given time. 

By teaming up with your key vendors, managed services, and legal counsel, you can all work together to help protect one another and devise a working plan to move forward.

Create a Working Plan

Selecting your cybersecurity team before you have a clear and accurate understanding of their roles and responsibilities is a waste of time.

Before you even begin considering a list of candidates, create a clear definition of each team member’s duties first.

Determine who handles what and how the group should work together. Clearly defining all roles and responsibilities will make it easier to find the exact team members you need.

It will also leave your organisation much better equipped to prevent and address all threats as soon as they appear.

When assembled properly, your information security should be able to accomplish the following tasks:

1. Systems Monitoring 

They should closely monitor all your systems for potential breaches. Auditing and assessments should be made consistently for all existing strategies to identify potential vulnerabilities.

Emerging threats need to be proactively prepared for with at least one cybersecurity professional monitoring the potential threat at all times. New software options should be constantly researched and evaluated for effectiveness.

2. Reporting

All security threats or incidents need to be reported immediately, no matter how small they appear to be. Penetration testing should also be conducted on a regular basis.

A good communication system for incoming reports and as a way to share critical information should be established. Best practices need to be employed at all times and improved upon.

3. Policy Updates

Policies, procedures, and systems should be constantly updated as necessary in order to continuously protect your business from cyber attacks.

All employees, regardless of their position within your company, should be constantly informed of the importance of cybersecurity and taught how to proactively prevent any incidents from occurring.

Source from People with Real–World Experience

Some of your cybersecurity team will be on an entry-level basis. That’s okay and it’s good because you can train them according to your needs.

But it’s also smart to find at least a few professionals with actual real-life experience. They know what it’s like to battle a cybersecurity threat and can help guide your team to prevent future problems.

Look at sites like LinkedIn where you can scope out potential candidates who have worked or are working at companies with a cybersecurity focus. You can also find candidates who have thus far worked as consultants but are looking for a position with less travel.

Those with real-world experience will bring knowledge and professionalism to your team which cam benefit everyone in your organisation.

Provide Opportunities for Training and Continuing Education

When selecting your cybersecurity team, keep in mind that training and continuing education need to be a huge part of your business. Technology changes rapidly.

There are always new systems and tools, and your team needs to know and understand how to work with them almost as soon as they’re introduced to the market.

Keep training your employees to ensure they are able to handle ongoing and incoming threats. Send them to conferences, hold workshops, and encourage them to educate themselves.

If you don’t, you can be sure that your best cybersecurity employees will find another company who does encourage them to continue their education. You’re not only investing in securing your company from threats, you’re investing in your team to help build your organisation and outshine your competition.

Pay Your Information Security Team Well

As with everything else in life, you get what you pay for. If you want to build a cybersecurity team that’s highly effective, invested in your company, and great at their jobs, you need to pay them well.

Specialised cyber skills aren’t exactly that easy to find these days. You’ll need to do some research to determine the value of the skills before you come up with a salary base for each position you have open.

Be flexible with the salary in order to attract the right talent. Think of it this way: it’s always more affordable for you to pay a higher salary to the right cybersecurity employee than it is for you to pay for a security breach your lesser paid employee didn’t spot.

Paying a higher rate means you’ll not only attract the right talent, you’ll also be able to keep that talent once you’ve acquired them.

Take Your Time

Yes, cybersecurity is something that needs to be addressed immediately in every company, but that doesn’t mean you should ever rush to fill a space in your organisation.

Take your time before you start hiring employees. You need to ensure that each employee has the skills necessary to complete the work, along with the soft skills needed to fit in your company culture.

Most importantly, do a thorough background check. Cybersecutity is a delicate profession. Make sure you trust that your employees know which lines aren’t to be crossed and create proper protocols to help avoid hiring people who may turn to the dark side. 

Work With Us

Building your own cybersecurity team is much easier when you have access to the right information and a great talent pool.