Why A Weak Or Outdated Cybersecurity Policy Puts Your Business At Risk

By: Eileen Smith on April 17, 2025

Why A Weak Or Outdated Cybersecurity Policy Puts Your Business At Risk

Cybersecurity | Compliance | Information Security

Many businesses today are being whip-sawed by an onslaught of cyber incidents. Threat actors are using increasingly sophisticated maneuvers to slip into IT systems undetected to launch a potentially devastating cyberattack.

These highly sophisticated and organized tactics are becoming harder to detect.

The result is that a growing number of individuals and organizations have been hit by cyber threats such as a data breach or phishing attack, leading to compromised or stolen sensitive data, financial loss, reputational damage, and more.

One way businesses can protect themselves is by reviewing and improving their cybersecurity policies.

Your security policies aren’t a simple set-it-and-forget-it proposition.

In this article, we’ll explore the importance of regularly reviewing your organization’s cybersecurity policy as a way to protect your data and systems from new and emerging cybersecurity threats.

With this information, you’ll ensure that your staff knows and understands the expectations for ensuring cyber health and maintaining data integrity to mitigate threats.

5 Key Reasons Why Your Business Needs A Cybersecurity Policy

A cybersecurity policy isn’t just a buzz word, it’s an essential part of your organization’s overall security posture. A well-thought-out, comprehensive cybersecurity policy for your business requires careful planning as well as employee input.

1. Regulatory Compliance Requirements

Not only can your policies mitigate cyber incidents and offer data protection, they are also needed to satisfy various state and federal cybersecurity and data privacy regulations.

Since cybersecurity policies play such an important role in safeguarding an organization’s infrastructure, a number of state and federal regulations require businesses to develop written cybersecurity policies and procedures.

Examples of some of the federal regulations and security frameworks include: Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (GLBA), Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act (CISA), and Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification Rule 2.0 (CMMC).

2. Threat Prevention

As we mentioned, malicious actors are getting smarter, finding new ways to infiltrate your network to steal or compromise your data through malware or ransomware attacks.

The damage from these and other cyber incidents can have lasting consequences, leading to possible lost revenue, customer defections, reputational damage, legal fallout, and compliance issues.

By having a well-defined and properly enforced cybersecurity policy, you’ll significantly lessen the chances of a cyber incident.

The policies you adopt can be pivotal in how quickly you react to potential threats to limit the damage, your company’s ability to continue to operate during an incident, and how quickly you can recover and resume normal operations following such incidents.

3. Employee Education

These policies don’t exist in a vacuum, of course. Educating your staff, particularly new hires, about your cybersecurity policy is critical to keeping your business secure.

Since as much as 90 percent of phishing attacks stem from human error, employees serve as the first line of defense to keeping threat actors out.

A company-wide cybersecurity policy is critical to developing a security mindset and culture within your organization to help reduce the chances of them falling for a phishing scheme or making some other mistake that could put your data and business at risk.

4. Faster Incident Response

By having a comprehensive cybersecurity policy in place, you increase your chances of being able to quickly respond to any unusual activity.

Your employees will have a roadmap in hand to know exactly who to contact and the protocols they need to follow to block the potential threat at the device to prevent further intrusion into your systems.

It also lets you know the internal or external IT security team members who are responsible for further investigating the incident to determine whether additional action is needed.

Your security team can then debrief following the incident to evaluate the effectiveness of the response.

5. Cybersecurity Liability Insurance

Not only can your policies and procedures mitigate cyber risks to your business, they’re also often required to satisfy stricter cybersecurity liability insurance requirements.

Cybersecurity claims have doubled over the past three years, according to a recently released report by Astra Security.

With the growing incidence of cyberattacks spurring the rise in cybersecurity claims, insurers have toughened their requirements for cybersecurity liability insurance to maintain coverage.

Insurers’ stricter cybersecurity mandates are intended to make sure businesses are taking the constant threat of a cyber incident seriously with strong security measures to protect their data and systems.

Developing or updating your cybersecurity policy ensures that you meet the cybersecurity liability insurance policy requirements for your business.

Failing to meet these insurance cybersecurity requirements could lead to dropped coverage.

What Should Your Business Cybersecurity Policy Include?

To develop an effect cybersecurity policy, it needs to be both intentional and straightforward, ensuring that you get your points across using clear and concise language to make it easy for all employees to understand.

Having a policy with either vague or overly complex language will likely lead to confusion, misinterpretation, difficulty enforcing the rules, and a lack of adherence by your staff.

This would essentially render your policy largely ineffective for what it was intended to do—protect your business from cyber threats.

Company leaders and designated stakeholders within your organization need to be actively involved in the entire process, from the review of your existing policies to the development and implementation of new or revised cybersecurity guidelines for business.

Depending on the regulatory requirements specific to your business and industry, you should keep your policy as manageable as possible for staff to ensure ongoing adherence.

An effective cybersecurity policy will establish necessary security guardrails such as:

Infrastructure security: Establishes the standards for securing your network, including network configuration, network and device monitoring, and threat detection and analysis
Role-based access control: Sets the parameters for limiting access to authorized users based on job duty and role
Data security: Details the proper procedures for handling, storing, transmitting, and discarding sensitive information
Equipment maintenance: Spells out the proper use, storage, and maintenance of company IT equipment to maximize the life and use of the device and minimize equipment failure or data loss
Password strength: Encourages replacing all default or easily-guessed passwords with strong login credentials to reduce the chances of them being intercepted
Usage guidelines and expectations: Spells out the acceptable use of company data and technology, as well as any consequences for the willful disregard of these expectations
Incident response: Lays out the steps to follow in the event of a cyber incident, including the proper chain of communication among internal and external stakeholders for incident reporting, the required reporting time, the protocols for remediation, and post-incident review by your security team.
Employee responsibility: Outlines the expectations for equipment use, internet access, and overall cyber hygiene practices for your staff, including regular employee cybersecurity awareness training
Business continuity and disaster recovery: Details the steps to take to keep your business running during a disaster and ensure you recover as quickly as possible following an emergency

How To Create An Effective Cybersecurity Policy

A well-defined cybersecurity policy for your organization should contain several key components to be successful.

Your policy should be:

Straightforward:

Your policy should be simple and easy to understand. This will help eliminate confusion and increase employee buy-in.

Up-to-date:

Ensure that your policy accurately reflects current best practices and regulatory requirements. Besides helping you meet those requirements; it might also provide legal protections.

How stringent and expansive your actual cybersecurity measures need to be will largely depend on the specific laws governing your specific business and the type of data you store, process, or transfer.

Broadly applied:

Your policy should be universal so that it applies evenly across your organization. This will ensure that all employees are held to the same standards and are equally accountable for doing their part to safeguard your data and network.

If any specific exceptions need to be made for certain roles or responsibilities, then those should also be made clear within the policy to dispel any perceived favoritism.

Flexible

Your cybersecurity policy isn’t meant to be static.

Just as security threats are constantly evolving, so too, should your cybersecurity policy. That’s why it’s so important that you review your policies and procedures regularly to ensure that they keep up with technology advances and new and emerging threats.

When possible, get feedback from your staff on your company’s cybersecurity policy and any negative impact of specific requirements on their ability to effectively do their jobs.

Functional

The cybersecurity policies and procedures you adopt are only effective at maintaining data integrity and the overall health of your infrastructure if they actually work.

That’s why you’ll need to periodically conduct controlled tests within your organization to verify that these security measures are functioning properly with day-to-day tasks.

These tests will also serve as a way to verify that the security measures are still being followed and enforced.

The Bottom Line On Maintaining An Effective Cybersecurity Policy

Given today's technology dependence and emerging threat landscape, businesses across all industries need to stay vigilant against bad actors looking to exploit any weakness in your network and systems to steal or compromise your data for financial gain.

Now that you've read this article, you have a thorough understanding of the benefits of implementing new or updated cybersecurity policies to limit your security risk, maintain data integrity, and minimize cyber threats.

Ensuring that you have an updated, comprehensive cybersecurity policy is a first step in shoring up those vulnerabilities.

Do you know what hidden cybersecurity threats may be lurking in your IT environment?

You might be considering partnering with a managed IT services provider (MSP) if you don't have the in-house IT staff with the expertise or bandwidth to evaluate your environment, assess your cybersecurity risks, and implement the right policies, procedures, and cybersecurity solutions that are right for your business.

How prepared is your business in the event of a cyber incident? Click the button to learn how an MSP can evaluate your current cybersecurity posture.

We know that managed IT is not the right solution for every business. If you are considering turning to managed services, be sure to carefully evaluate several options.

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