Cybersecurity risk assessment

A cybersecurity risk assessment is a structured review of where your business is exposed to attack and how serious each exposure is. It looks at how people sign in, how devices and email are protected, how data is backed up and controlled, how remote access works, and how prepared your team is to respond. The goal is a clear picture of your risk so you can fix the most dangerous gaps first.

This free tool is a fast self-assessment version of that review. You answer 15 plain-language questions and the tool scores your answers against the controls that security professionals and cyber insurers expect from a small business.

The assessment covers eight areas. Identity and access looks at multi-factor authentication and how tightly administrator access is held. Endpoint protection and patching looks at threat protection on every device and how updates are managed. Email and phishing defense looks at SPF, DKIM, and DMARC and at link and attachment scanning. Backup and recovery looks at independent backups and whether a restore has been tested. Data protection looks at encryption and least privilege access. Network and remote access looks at protected remote connections and network separation. Security awareness and incident response looks at staff training and a written response plan. Cyber insurance readiness looks at whether your controls match what a policy requires.

Each of the 15 questions scores from zero to three points and maps to a recognized safeguard from the CIS Controls version 8.1 Implementation Group 1 and a function of the NIST Cybersecurity Framework. The tool sorts your answers into eight security areas, then combines those areas into a single score from zero to 100 using risk-based weights, so the areas where small business incidents concentrate, such as identity and backup, count for more than lower-risk areas. That score places you in a risk level of low, moderate, elevated, or high. A few controls that security professionals and insurers treat as non-negotiable, such as multi-factor authentication and a real backup, are gated, so leaving one open raises your risk level even when the rest of your score is strong, because that is how an attacker and an underwriter would weigh it too.

This assessment is a fast self-check built for small and mid-size businesses. It maps to a selection of CIS Implementation Group 1 safeguards and to the functions of the NIST Cybersecurity Framework, so it is not a full CIS or NIST assessment and not a compliance audit. Use it to find and prioritize your biggest gaps, then bring in a deeper review when an insurer, a contract, or a regulator calls for one.

A score of 85 or higher places most small businesses in the low risk range, which is the level security professionals recommend as a baseline. The typical small business lands lower, often in the elevated range, with one or two critical controls missing. The number itself matters less than the gaps behind it. A business that closes its critical findings in priority order usually moves into the low or moderate range within a few months, and most of those fixes cost nothing beyond turning on controls you already have.

A risk assessment identifies where you are exposed and how serious each exposure is, so you know what to fix first. A security audit goes further and verifies each control with evidence, usually performed by an outside party against a recognized framework. This free tool is a self-assessment, which means it scores what you report rather than verifying it inside your systems. Use the self-assessment to find your gaps quickly, then move to a documented assessment or a formal audit when an insurer, a regulator, or a contract requires proof.

Yes. The cybersecurity risk assessment is completely free. There is no signup required to take it or to see your score, your risk level, and your findings. The full report is also free. We send it to the email you provide if you choose to request it.

Your answers are scored in your browser. When your results appear, we record an anonymous usage entry that includes only your risk score, your risk level, and your approximate location from your IP address. When you request the full report, we also pass your email and a summary of your results to our team so we can send the report and follow up if you want a review call. We do not add you to any mailing list.

Quarterly is a good cadence for most small businesses. Your team and your tools change, security defaults drift as people are added and removed, and new threats appear all the time. A 3-minute self-assessment every three months is a low-cost way to catch problems before they become incidents, and it gives you a record you can show an insurer at renewal.

The most common cybersecurity risks for small businesses are account takeover from missing multi-factor authentication, business email compromise from missing SPF, DKIM, and DMARC, ransomware reaching files through unmanaged devices, and data loss because nobody has a real backup that an attacker cannot delete. A risk that most owners underestimate is the undetected breach. Many small businesses have no one reviewing security alerts, so an attacker who is already inside can stay there for months. Most of these risks can be reduced without buying anything new, because the controls are already included in the tools you pay for.

Cyber insurers focus on the controls that prevent the claims they pay most often. They look for multi-factor authentication, endpoint detection and response, tested and tamper-resistant backups, and email authentication, and they treat these four as close to mandatory. They also ask about patching, security awareness training, a written incident response plan, limited access, encryption, and a verification step for wire transfers. This assessment scores all of these, so a strong result here lines up closely with a strong cyber insurance application.

Yes, and you should. The questions are written for business owners and managers, not for IT staff. If you do not know the answer to a question, pick the not sure option and the tool treats it as a gap to surface. Not knowing whether a control is in place is itself a finding worth seeing, because a control nobody can confirm often turns out to be missing.

Start with the critical findings, which are the controls an attacker targets first. For most small businesses that means enforcing multi-factor authentication for every user, adding a real backup that an attacker cannot delete, configuring SPF, DKIM, and DMARC on your domain, and running monitored threat protection on every device. These four changes close the gaps behind most breaches and most denied insurance claims, and they move a risk score more than anything else you can do in a single afternoon.

A risk assessment shows where you are exposed and how serious each gap is, which is what this tool gives you. A risk analysis is the documented, in-depth version that records each control and exposure the way an auditor or insurer expects to see it. A penetration test is a hands-on exercise where a tester actively tries to break in to prove which weaknesses are exploitable. Use the assessment to find your gaps, a risk analysis to document them, and a penetration test when you need proof of how an attacker would get through.

You reduce cybersecurity risk by closing your findings in priority order, starting with the critical items and then the items marked needs attention. The highest-impact moves for most small businesses are enforcing multi-factor authentication everywhere, adding tested backups, authenticating your email domain, and running monitored threat protection on every device. After those, training your staff to spot phishing and writing a one-page incident response plan close the gaps that turn a small problem into an expensive one. If you want help, Wolferdawg IT Consulting does this work for businesses across Southwest Oklahoma every day.