CIS Controls: A Small Business Starting Point

If the NIST Framework tells you what areas to manage, the CIS Controls tell you exactly what to do. For a small business owner who wants a concrete, prioritized list of security actions — not abstract principles — the CIS Controls are one of the best starting points available, and they are free. Here is what they are and how a small business should use them.

What the CIS Controls are

The CIS Controls are a prioritized set of cybersecurity best practices maintained by the Center for Internet Security. They distill the most effective defenses into a manageable set of controls — covering things like inventorying your devices and software, protecting data, controlling access, managing accounts, and responding to incidents. What makes them so useful is that they are prioritized: they tell you not just what to do, but what to do first for the biggest risk reduction.

Implementation Groups: start with IG1

The single most important thing for a small business to understand is the concept of Implementation Groups. The Controls are divided into three groups by an organization’s size, resources, and risk:

• Implementation Group 1 (IG1) is essential cyber hygiene — the baseline set of safeguards every organization, including the smallest, should have. It is explicitly designed for small businesses with limited resources.
• IG2 and IG3 add more advanced safeguards for larger organizations or those with higher risk and more sensitive data.

For most small businesses, IG1 is the goal. It is a focused, achievable set of foundational safeguards that defends against the most common attacks — and reaching it puts you ahead of a large share of small businesses that have no structured program at all.

What IG1 covers

The IG1 safeguards focus on fundamentals that stop the majority of real-world attacks: knowing what hardware and software you have, configuring it securely, controlling who has access and removing accounts promptly, protecting data with backups, keeping systems patched, using protections against malware, providing security awareness training, and having a basic incident response capability. None of it is exotic — it is disciplined execution of the basics, which is exactly what defeats most attacks against small businesses.

Why this is a great starting point

The CIS Controls solve the biggest problem small businesses face with security: not knowing where to begin or what matters most. Instead of trying to do everything, you get a prioritized, vetted list with a clear baseline (IG1) sized for your resources. They also map cleanly onto the NIST Cybersecurity Framework functions, so you can use NIST for structure and the CIS Controls for the specific actions under it — a powerful, practical combination.

How to start

Download the CIS Controls and focus on IG1. Work through the safeguards as a checklist, marking what you already do and what you need to implement, then close the gaps in priority order — starting with asset inventory and access control, since you cannot protect what you do not know you have. Document your decisions and the policies that support them; our cybersecurity policy guide helps there. If you want a partner to assess your current state against IG1 and build the roadmap, Veteran Forge Strategies works with small businesses to implement the Controls efficiently.

A practical 30-60-90 day IG1 plan

The CIS Controls can still feel like a lot at once, so it helps to phase IG1 over a quarter. In your first 30 days, focus on visibility and access — you cannot protect what you cannot see. Build an inventory of your devices and the software running on them, identify where your sensitive data lives, and review who has access to what, removing accounts and privileges that are not needed. Turn on multi-factor authentication everywhere you can, starting with email and remote access. In the next 30 days (days 31–60), harden and protect: apply secure configurations to your devices and cloud apps, get a reliable, tested backup in place for critical data, establish a patching routine so operating systems and software stay current, and make sure malware protection is active on every endpoint. In the final 30 days (days 61–90), build the human and response layers: deliver security awareness training so your team can recognize phishing and social engineering, document a basic incident response plan that names who does what when something goes wrong, and formalize how you handle data disposal and service-provider security. At the end of the quarter you will have moved through the heart of IG1 — not perfectly, but substantially — and you will be measurably more secure than the large share of small businesses with no structured program at all. From there, IG1 becomes a maintenance rhythm: keep the inventory current, the backups tested, the patches flowing, and the training recurring. Steady upkeep of the basics is what actually stops attacks.

Key takeaways

• The CIS Controls are a free, prioritized set of cybersecurity best practices — concrete actions, not abstract principles.
• Implementation Group 1 (IG1) is the small-business baseline of essential cyber hygiene.
• IG1 focuses on fundamentals: asset inventory, secure configuration, access control, backups, patching, training, and incident response.
• They map onto the NIST Framework — use NIST for structure, the CIS Controls for the specific to-do list.

Frequently asked questions

What is the difference between the CIS Controls and NIST? NIST gives you a structure of functions to manage; the CIS Controls give you specific, prioritized actions to take. They work well together.

Where should a small business start? With Implementation Group 1 (IG1) — the baseline of essential safeguards designed for organizations with limited resources.

Are the CIS Controls free? Yes — the Controls are freely available from the Center for Internet Security.

How many CIS Controls are there? The current version has 18 Controls made up of specific safeguards; Implementation Group 1 (IG1) is the subset of those safeguards that forms the essential small-business baseline, so a small business does not need all 18 Controls in full to be meaningfully protected — reaching IG1 is the realistic and worthwhile first goal.

This article is for general informational purposes only and is not legal or professional security advice.