Cybersecurity Foundation for SMEs: Implementing Essential Cyber Hygiene
Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) face significant cybersecurity challenges nowadays especially when it comes to implementing essential cyber hygiene practices, due to limited resources and inadequate protective measures. According to Verizon, 61% of SMEs were targeted by cyber-attacks in 2021, and yet many are still unaware of the foundational cybersecurity measures needed to protect their business.
As SMEs often operate with limited resources, navigating the complex cybersecurity market can be overwhelming. SMEs struggle with answering, “Where to start?” or “What to focus on?”. To answer these questions the Center for Internet Security (CIS) has developed the Community Defense Model, a cyber hygiene framework that provides practical and affordable cybersecurity for small businesses, which outlines evidence-based safeguards that provide protection against more than 80% of attack techniques used by top threats and is, according to CIS, essential cyber hygiene for all organizations regardless of size and budget.
CIS designates these safeguards as Implementation Group 1 or IG1. All SMEs must start with these. SMEs in low cyber risk businesses may not need to go beyond these, whereas SMEs in higher cyber risk businesses need to implement more advanced safeguards in IG2 and IG3 but must first have IG1 addressed, as it is foundational.
Essential cyber hygiene consists of 56 safeguards, however, and SMEs may find these challenging, complex and costly to implement. Ebryx’s Essential Cyber Hygiene solution simplifies this process, helping SMEs implement these CIS IG1 safeguards with cost-effective and practical tools. This blog will explore the key cybersecurity challenges for SMEs and how Ebryx can help address them.
Cybersecurity Challenges for SMEs
SMEs face a unique set of cybersecurity challenges that leave them vulnerable to attacks. Some of the major challenges include poor cybersecurity hygiene practices and cybersecurity risk management issues:
Limited Resources:
Unlike larger organizations, SMEs often lack the resources both financial and human required to implement comprehensive cybersecurity measures. This resource gap prevents them from establishing and maintaining a solid security foundation.
Complex Security Market:
The overwhelming variety of cybersecurity products and services makes it difficult for SMEs to select solutions that truly meet their needs. This market confusion often leads them to invest in tools based on marketing hype rather than proven effectiveness.
Poor Cyber Hygiene:
Due to limited knowledge and resources, cyber hygiene best practices for SMEs are often neglected, leaving critical security gaps that make them vulnerable to attacks. Essential security measures, such as proper access management and vulnerability patching, are often neglected.
High Threat Exposure:
Apart from scale, SMEs often have similar infrastructure and services as larger organizations but lack comparable resources to defend themselves. This imbalance leaves them more susceptible to the same threats faced by large enterprises, but without the same level of protection.
Investment vs. Results:
Despite increasing investments in cybersecurity, many SMEs still experience breaches. This disconnect suggests that the money spent isn’t translating into effective protection, often because strategies are misaligned with real-world threats.
Lack of Data-Driven Security:
Without a clear, evidence-based strategy, many SMEs rely on outdated or ineffective security measures. This lack of data-driven decision-making means they often focus on the wrong areas, leaving them vulnerable to top threats.
Abstract Security Standards:
Many cybersecurity frameworks are too vague and complex for SMEs to implement effectively. Standards like NIST 800-53, with over 1,000 controls, are difficult for small businesses to interpret and apply.
Vendor Focus:
Most cybersecurity solutions are designed with large enterprises in mind, often leaving SMEs with ill-fitting, overly complex, or expensive options that don’t address their specific needs.
Compliance Requirements:
Many SMEs are required to meet strict compliance standards like SOC 2, ISO 27001, and HIPAA, but the cost and time required to achieve compliance can be a heavy burden, further stretching their limited resources.
Expertise and Focus Gap:
Many SMEs lack dedicated cybersecurity leadership like CISOs, relying on IT staff for security roles. This expertise gap, compounded by inadequate in-house skills, significantly increases the risk of breaches and hinders robust security implementation.
The Solution: Essential Cyber Hygiene
Essential Cyber Hygiene, as defined by the Center for Internet Security (CIS), represents the foundational cybersecurity practices every organization, especially small and medium-sized businesses (SMEs), should implement to protect against 80% of attack techniques.
These practices, grouped under Implementation Group 1 (IG1), are designed to cover the most basic yet critical security needs, making them highly accessible and practical for resource-constrained businesses. IG1 spans15 controls under which there are 56 safeguards that focus on essential tasks such as inventorying hardware and software, implementing multi-factor authentication (MFA), securing configurations, and managing access controls.
Following are the 15 CIS IG1 controls:
However, Essential Cyber Hygiene is just the starting point. To achieve more advanced security measures, CIS offers further Implementation Groups—IG2 and IG3. These groups build on the foundational safeguards of IG1 and are designed to address more sophisticated threats, providing a path for organizations to scale their security as they grow. While IG1 ensures a strong defense against common attacks, IG2 and IG3 introduce more advanced measures for organizations with higher security needs, such as those in high-risk industries like fintech or healthtech.
Why CIS Controls?
The Center for Internet Security (CIS) Controls provides an evidence-based, practical framework designed to help organizations of all sizes, particularly SMEs, implement robust cybersecurity practices. CIS Controls are highly effective because they are both relevant and straightforward, making them ideal for businesses with limited resources.
Relevance and Simplicity:
Many cybersecurity frameworks are abstract, complex, and difficult for SMEs to implement. CIS Controls, on the other hand, are designed with simplicity and real-world applicability in mind. Implementation Group 1, provides clear and actionable steps that every SME can follow. These steps focus on safeguarding core business operations and securing critical assets without overwhelming businesses with unnecessary complexity.
Operational Focus:
CIS Controls are grounded in operational tasks that SMEs can integrate into their daily activities. The focus is on essential security measures such as asset inventory, secure configuration, and user access management—tasks that directly impact an organization’s ability to protect itself from cyber threats. These operational safeguards ensure that security becomes a natural part of the business’s processes, rather than a complex and disconnected set of procedures.
Data-Driven:
What sets CIS apart from many other frameworks is its reliance on real-world data. The CIS Community Defense Model draws from vast amounts of breach data from sources like Verizon and Microsoft. These insights identify the most common cyber-attacks and the specific safeguards that are proven to mitigate them. As a result, CIS Controls prioritize the most impactful security measures, ensuring that SMEs focus their efforts on countering the most prevalent and dangerous threats.
Community-Based:
CIS Controls benefit from being developed and continuously updated by a global community of cybersecurity experts. This collective expertise ensures that the guidelines stay current with emerging threats and best practices. SMEs that adopt CIS Controls are not just following static guidelines but are implementing safeguards that evolve with the shifting cybersecurity landscape, informed by a wide network of professionals.
Prescriptive Approach:
Unlike many vague cybersecurity frameworks, CIS provides a prescriptive approach with step-by-step guidance. This structured methodology eliminates guesswork, helping SMEs to systematically implement security measures. By following these detailed instructions, businesses can confidently secure their operations while reducing the likelihood of missteps or gaps in their defenses.
Challenges Faced by SMEs in Implementing CIS IG1
Although the CIS Implementation Group 1 (IG1) safeguards are designed to be the least complex, many SMEs still find implementing them a daunting task. CIS IG1 consists of 56 essential safeguards aimed at establishing foundational cybersecurity, but SMEs often face several challenges in effectively putting these safeguards into action.
Overwhelming Volume of Safeguards:
For many SMEs, the sheer number of 56 safeguards can feel overwhelming, especially for those with limited IT staff and resources. Implementing this wide scope of controls, each with its own technical details, requires a level of expertise and time that smaller businesses may struggle to allocate. This often results in a piecemeal approach, leaving significant gaps in their cybersecurity defenses.
Tool Complexity:
Implementing the 56 CIS IG1 safeguards maps to up to 16 different types of tools, including asset management, identity and access management, firewalls, encryption, and vulnerability management.
For SMEs, navigating this array of tools can be challenging. The process of evaluating multiple vendors and selecting tools that fit their specific needs can be time-consuming and introduce variability in costs. Additionally, the ongoing cost of maintaining and updating these tools can strain a small business’s budget.
Lack of Cybersecurity Expertise:
Many SMEs do not have in-house cybersecurity experts to interpret the technical details of CIS IG1 safeguards. The nuanced nature of these controls requires a solid understanding of cybersecurity principles. Without this expertise, businesses may fail to comprehend the importance of each safeguard or could implement them incorrectly, leaving themselves vulnerable to attacks.
Decision Paralysis:
The crowded cybersecurity market can be overwhelming, with countless vendors offering various solutions. For SMEs, this often leads to decision paralysis, where the fear of making the wrong investment delays the implementation of essential safeguards, prolonging their exposure to cyber threats.
How Ebryx Helps SMEs Implement Essential Cyber Hygiene?
Ebryx’s Essential Cyber Hygiene Solution simplifies CIS IG1 implementation and cyber hygiene for SMEs, providing a streamlined and affordable approach for small business cybersecurity solutions. Designed specifically to meet the needs of small and medium-sized businesses, this solution addresses the key challenges SMEs face in implementing the 56 CIS IG1 safeguards, such as the overwhelming number of tools and processes required.
At the core of the Ebryx Essential Cyber Hygiene Solution are a minimal set of tools (Ebryx Security Platform) that cover all 56 safeguards without the need for excessive and complex technology stacks. These tools, along with Ebryx’s comprehensive services, reduce the burden on SMEs by consolidating the necessary 16 tool types and 10 processes into one simplified package. This not only streamlines the implementation process but also ensures that SMEs can achieve cybersecurity compliance quickly and effectively.
Covering the Essential Cyber Hygiene Gaps with Ebryx
Unless a business is just starting out, an enterprise would already have coverage of several essentials in place. However, in our experience, most SMEs have less than 10% coverage of these essentials. Regardless of the current level of implementation, our solution fills the remaining gaps and provides a solid foundation on which to build more advanced security, should the organization have the need.
We've observed that fundamental cybersecurity technologies such as Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) and firewalls are common, yet many SMEs lack robust systems for hardware and software inventory management, endpoint and server firewall management, and access management based on the security posture of devices and strong authentication of users.
Knowing what belongs in your organization is crucial; without that you cannot tell what does not belong and could be a threat. Furthermore, a few SMEs, and some enterprises, employ access control systems that consider the state of devices. This often results in increased security risks due to inadequate access control measures. These critical gaps are bridged by the capabilities offered by the Ebryx Security Platform as part of the essential cyber hygiene solution.
Ebryx Essential Cyber Hygiene Solution Explained
Core Tools and Services
Ebryx Security Platform:
A curated set of cybersecurity tools that combines the capabilities of several, typically missing, products in one. The capabilities include
- Hardware Asset Inventory
- Software Asset Inventory
- MFA and Single Sign-On
- Network Access Control
- VPN Replacement/ZTNA
- Endpoint and Server Firewall Management
- Privileged Access Management
Anti-Malware:
Election from a number of anti-malware tools that fit the SME’s risk profile and budget. These range from basic protection to advanced solutions for more sensitive organizations.
Security Awareness Training:
Ensures that employees are well-equipped to recognize and respond to cyber threats, an essential component of any security strategy.
Governance, Risk, and Compliance (GRC):
Comprehensive coverage of policies and procedures required for compliance with security standards.
Additional Capabilities
SMEs may typically already have the below-mentioned areas covered through MSPs or their internal IT. However, Ebryx offers solutions for these areas as well.
Data Recovery and Backup Solutions:
Ensures secure backup options and fast recovery in case of data loss.
Unified Endpoint Management Solution:
Provides centralized management of endpoint devices, enhancing security and ensuring compliance.
Simplified Implementation and Filling Gaps
Ebryx’s solution reduces the complexity of implementing CIS IG1 by leveraging existing infrastructure and addressing gaps in cybersecurity, rather than replacing what is already working. This approach helps SMEs fill critical security gaps and implement all 56 safeguards efficiently. For organizations that have already implemented some security measures, Ebryx’s solution integrates seamlessly, allowing for a smoother transition to comprehensive cyber hygiene.
Beyond Essential Hygiene
For SMEs in higher-risk industries or those requiring more advanced security measures, Ebryx also supports Implementation Groups 2 and 3 (IG2 and IG3) of the CIS Controls. As part of covering these advanced security needs, Ebryx offers a range of services such as SOC, pen testing, DevSecOps, and Zero Trust Architecture to help organizations strengthen their defenses and stay ahead of evolving threats.
Establish Essential Cyber Hygiene TodayFinal Thoughts
CIS Controls for small businesses are crucial for establishing essential cyber hygiene and basic cybersecurity hygiene. By implementing these cybersecurity best practices, organizations can protect against prevalent cybersecurity threats effectively. Ebryx’s Essential Cyber Hygiene Solution simplifies the implementation of these safeguards, making it efficient and cost-effective for SMEs to enhance their security posture.
Next Steps
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