What Is Cyber Risk Management?

• Cyber Risk Management Definition

  Cyber Risk Management Definition

  Cybersecurity risk management involves identifying your organization’s assets, reviewing its security measures, and analyzing, evaluating, and taking appropriate action against its cybersecurity threats. It’s a proactive approach to cybersecurity helps organizations mitigate risks and protect data.
• The Importance of Cyber Risk Management

  The Importance of Cyber Risk Management

  Proper cyber risk management is vital for organizations large and small. We’re more reliant on technology than ever, meaning vulnerabilities in digital systems can significantly disrupt operations, compromise sensitive data, and damage customer trust. This makes proper cyber risk management a non-negotiable. With cyber risk management processes in place, businesses can identify vulnerabilities, mitigate threats, and maintain operational continuity.

  Cyber risk management is essential for compliance with various regulations. Governments and industries worldwide have adopted laws to help protect data and secure systems against cyberthreats.

  Along with protecting assets, cyber risk management can foster a culture of security awareness within an organization, which can have far-reaching effects. By having everyone on the same page and working toward the same goal of keeping the organization as secure as possible, businesses can turn every employee into an active participant in identifying and mitigating risks.
• Cyber Risk Management Challenges

  Cyber Risk Management Challenges

  Cyber risk management isn’t always straightforward. It can sometimes get incredibly complicated within organizations due to challenges such as:

  • The increasingly complex nature of IT environments: Organizations in modern times operate across hybrid and multi-cloud systems, legacy infrastructure, and remote work setups. These intricate ecosystems create numerous entry points for potential cyberthreats, making maintaining a consistent security posture harder.
  • A lack of centralized visibility: Systems and networks often lack unified visibility. As a result, it’s difficult to identify vulnerabilities in real time. With siloed departments and fragmented IT infrastructures, it’s easy for things to slip through the cracks.
  • Extensive reliance on third-party vendors: Companies share confidential information with an average of 583 third-party organizations. Yet, 16% effectively mitigate third-party risks, so it’s no wonder 59% of companies have experienced a third-party data breach.
  • No sense of accountability: Cybersecurity risk management is often seen as something the security team should do. Many people refuse to recognize everyone is responsible within an organization to maintain security and minimize risks.
  • Evolving threat landscapes: Cybercriminals are constantly developing new attack methods, meaning cyber risk management techniques that worked a decade or a year ago may no longer be sufficient. To keep up with the ever-evolving threat landscapes, organizations must dedicate time and effort to their cyber risk management strategies.
• Standards and Frameworks Related to Cyber Risk Management

  Standards and Frameworks Related to Cyber Risk Management

  Here are a few important standards and frameworks related to risk management in cybersecurity you need to know about:

  • International Organization for Standardization/International Electrotechnical Commission (ISO/IEC) 27001: ISO/IEC 27001 is a well-known standard for information security management systems. It offers a more holistic approach, encouraging companies to vet their people, policies, and technology to reduce risks, improve cyber-resilience, and achieve operational excellence. ISO/IEC 27001 has three principles of information security: confidentiality, information integrity, and data availability.
  • National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Cybersecurity Framework: NIST has developed the NIST Cybersecurity Framework, which provides guidelines for improving cybersecurity practices. This cybersecurity framework comprises five core functions: identify, protect, detect, respond, and recover.
  • NIST Risk Management Framework (RMF): The NIST RMF is a seven-step process organizations can use to manage their security and privacy risks better. The steps in the RMF are: prepare, categorize, select, implement, assess, authorize, and monitor.
• Cyber Risk Management Process

  Cyber Risk Management Process

  Let’s go through the core steps in the cybersecurity risk management process:

  • Assess risks: Start by naming all your assets and prioritizing them by importance. Identify every possible threat for each asset and consider any vulnerabilities in your environment. Consider how likely each threat is to occur and estimate its potential cost and impact on your business operations. Allow this information to guide you as you make risk management decisions and develop mitigation strategies.
  • Develop risk mitigation strategies: Deploy firewalls, use encryption, update software, utilize privileged access management (PAM) solutions, count on multi-factor access (MFA) authentication, or use dynamic data backup once you’ve identified and assessed your organization’s potential cybersecurity risks.
  • Create incident response plans: Have incident response plans in place, as these are crucial for minimizing the damage in a cyberattack or data breach. Each incident response plan should outline which steps to take when a security incident occurs, detect and contain the attack, notify the impacted parties, and recover swiftly. Incident response plans should clearly define each team member’s role and responsibilities. This helps ensure everyone understands what is expected of them, enabling quick and efficient action and resulting in a coordinated response.
  • Engage in regular monitoring: Monitor regulatory changes, internal IT usage, compliance control, and document security as you work with new vendors. Regular monitoring allows you to identify emerging threats or vulnerabilities more easily before they can escalate into significant issues. As a result, your organization will remain prepared for evolving cybersecurity risks and can quickly adapt to new challenges or compliance requirements.
• Benefits of Cyber Risk Management

  Benefits of Cyber Risk Management

  By engaging in cyber risk management, your organization can:

  • Detect and mitigate security threats: Proper cybersecurity risk management can help your organization proactively detect and neutralize security threats before they escalate and cause significant harm to your operations.
  • Prevent fraud: Cyber risk management strategies can reduce the risk of fraud and help shield your organization from financial and reputational losses by monitoring suspicious activities, safeguarding financial transactions, and establishing robust authentication protocols, such as MFA.
  • Identify credential and sensitive data leaks: Cyber risk management enables your organization to detect credential and sensitive information leaks on unauthorized platforms, such as the dark web. Early detection allows you to take action quickly. For example, you could revoke compromised credentials and implement additional safeguards to minimize potential damage.
  • Demonstrate compliance: Strong cybersecurity risk management allows companies to better adhere to relevant industry-specific regulations and global data protection laws and build trust with customers and partners.
  • Strengthen overall security posture: Cybersecurity risk management provides a comprehensive framework for identifying vulnerabilities, assessing risks, and implementing robust security measures across your organization. You will be able to develop a strong and resilient security infrastructure, reduce your exposure to threats, and keep your entire organization as secure as possible.
• Cyber Risk Management Best Practices

  Cyber Risk Management Best Practices

  To effectively mitigate cyber risks and enhance your organization’s security, you should implement a set of best practices to help safeguard your systems, data, and reputation. You’ll want to:

  • Conduct cybersecurity training programs: Make sure your entire team stays informed of best cybersecurity practices by hosting regular training sessions. Educate employees on recognizing phishing attacks, handling sensitive information securely, and following secure communication protocols to reduce the likelihood of a breach or other cybersecurity issue.
  • Keep software updated: Regular software updates are crucial for maintaining a strong cybersecurity posture, as many updates include security patches that address newly discovered vulnerabilities. Forgoing the most recent updates can leave your systems exposed to cyberattacks.
  • Use PAM solutions: PAM solutions can help you control and monitor access to sensitive systems and data. With the right PAM tool, you can help ensure only authorized personnel can access your critical systems and track actions taken with privileged accounts to detect suspicious activity.
  • Use MFA: MFA requires users to provide two or more verification factors, such as a password, hardware token, or fingerprint. This significantly enhances security because the attacker would still need the second factor to gain access if one factor is compromised.
  • Have dynamic data backup: Despite all these cyber risk management best practices, things can still go wrong. Hence, it’s important to regularly back up your critical data. With a dynamic data backup strategy, you can quickly restore operations with minimal downtime in case of a cyberattack or a system failure.
• How to Choose Cybersecurity Risk Management Software

  How to Choose Cybersecurity Risk Management Software

  Various cybersecurity risk management software options are available on the market. However, some are better than others. When selecting your cyber risk management software, look for one offering:

  • High visibility: Choosing software that provides comprehensive visibility into your organization’s cybersecurity posture means you can monitor threats, vulnerabilities, and compliance status in real time. As a result, you can make informed decisions and respond quickly to emerging risks.
  • Reporting functionality: Automatically compile accurate, up-to-date reports through your chosen cybersecurity risk management software instead of manually collecting data and generating reports. This can help you better secure user credentials, reduce other security risks, speed up your audits, and make it easier to demonstrate compliance with HIPAA, SOX, PCI DSS, and other standards and regulations.
  • Real-time monitoring: Monitoring in real time allows you to detect and respond to unusual activity, vulnerabilities, and other threats as they occur. Consequently, you can take action and minimize the potential for damage.
  • Automated responses: Choosing software that offers automated responses to identified vulnerabilities significantly reduces the time it takes to mitigate threats. By trusting your cyber risk management software to automatically take actions such as changing privileges, disabling accounts, or killing applications when certain rules are triggered, you can minimize the impact of attacks and ensure a faster recovery.
  • Easy deployment and use: Choosing an easy-to-deploy, simple-to-use cyber risk management software is a good idea. Selecting one that requires extensive configuration or has a tricky UI can delay implementation, discourage consistent use, and waste you and your employees’ time and energy. Cyber security risk management software with out-of-the-box content and a user-friendly interface can help you quickly find value in your software.

  If you’re looking for a robust cyber risk management tool, consider SolarWinds^® Access Rights Manager or SolarWinds Security Event Manager. Both are easy to install and simple to use yet can provide deep insights into your security, helping you minimize and manage cybersecurity risks. They can take action automatically when certain conditions are met, such as generating alerts, provisioning and de-provisioning accounts, and more.