Joel Test for Cybersecurity
Not long ago I was musing with a colleague that I thought that there should be a simple "Joel Test" style benchmark for corporate cybersecurity teams. For those who are not familiar with the Joel Test, it is a list of 12 yes/no questions that all software development teams should answer "yes" to. My colleague said that cybersecurity is too specialized and domain-specific for a general list of requirements. Yes, I know that there are frameworks like NIST CSF and ISO/IEC 27001, but those are elaborate and complicated. Today I got the idea to ask Claude AI for a Joel-style test for cybersecurity and I think that it came up with a great list of baseline practices that all teams should comply with. Here it is.
Looking at the Joel Test's principles, I can create a cyber security analog that captures the same spirit - simple yes/no questions that indicate fundamental health of a security program. Here's my "Cyber Security Team Test":
The Cyber Security Team Test
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Do you have comprehensive asset inventory? Can you answer "what systems do we have and where are they?" in under 5 minutes? Without knowing what you're protecting, you can't protect it effectively.
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Do you monitor and log security events in real-time? Are security logs being collected, analyzed, and alerting on suspicious activity 24/7? If an incident happens, you need to know about it immediately, not weeks later.
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Do you have an incident response plan that's actually practiced? Not just a document in a drawer - does your team regularly drill incident response scenarios? When something bad happens, muscle memory saves critical time.
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Do you patch critical vulnerabilities within 72 hours? Are you staying ahead of known exploits with a disciplined patching process? The window between disclosure and exploitation keeps shrinking.
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Do you require multi-factor authentication for all privileged access? Are admin accounts and sensitive systems protected beyond just passwords? This is your last line of defense when credentials are compromised.
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Do you have automated security scanning integrated into development? Are you catching vulnerabilities before they hit production? Security testing should be built into the pipeline, not bolted on afterward.
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Do you maintain an up-to-date threat model? Do you know what attacks you're most likely to face and have you designed defenses accordingly? Generic security is weak security.
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Do you have network segmentation and access controls? Can an attacker move laterally through your entire environment once they're in? Assume breach and limit blast radius.
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Do you perform regular security awareness training? Are your users your strongest or weakest link? Human error remains the top attack vector - train accordingly.
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Do you have offline, tested backups? Can you recover from ransomware or catastrophic failure? Your backup strategy is your ultimate safety net.
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Do you conduct regular penetration testing? Are you validating your defenses against real-world attack techniques? Testing assumptions is crucial.
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Do you have security requirements integrated into procurement? Are new tools and services evaluated for security impact before deployment? Security can't be an afterthought in vendor selection.
Like the Joel Test, this gives you a quick health check. A score of 12 is excellent, 10-11 is good, 8-9 needs improvement, and below 8 indicates serious gaps that need immediate attention.
The key insight from Joel's original test applies here too: these aren't the only factors that matter, but getting these fundamentals right creates a foundation for effective security operations. A team that scores well on these basics will be much better positioned to handle sophisticated threats than one that doesn't.