The significant increase in digital attacks on companies has led to the concept of Cyber Risk Management gaining more and more traction in organizations.
This approach, although it may seem complex, is quite simple, efficient and can be implemented in all types of business. In this article, we'll explore the importance of risk management in IT strategy and how it can help you keep your corporate activities safe at all times. Have a good read!
With the advance of technology and the increasing digitalization of business processes, cybersecurity has emerged as one of the main concerns for organizations around the world.
Every day, different companies are the target of increasingly dangerous and sophisticated cyber attacks, which can have consequences such as the loss of confidential data, disruption to operations, damage to institutional reputation and even significant financial impacts.
In this scenario, cyber risk management stands out as a strategically essential approach to expanding and maintaining the protection of companies' digital assets.
To meet today's cybersecurity challenges, it's important to understand that it's not enough just to use security programs based on digital maturity, but to adopt a risk-based approach that involves a real cultural change throughout the organization.
This is where Cyber Risk Management comes in. It consists of a set of practices that make up the process of identifying, analyzing, understanding and mitigating a company's security-related risks.
By implementing this concept, it is possible to view a cyber risk as a potential threat to the business, be it financial, productivity, regulatory compliance, damage to the brand's reputation or even physical loss of operating equipment and devices.
In the process of managing cyber risks, it is essential to maintain clarity, transparency and an understanding of the risks, as this will help to develop a realistic view of the business's vulnerabilities and to direct efforts and investments appropriately.
Even if your organization uses unified cybersecurity platforms or modern incident protection, detection and response technologies, these resources will not be enough to compensate, for example, for the lack of specialized and skilled professionals to design and operate them successfully.
For this reason, the efficient implementation of Cyber Risk Management requires some essential trends and practices, which will be discussed below:
In recent years, with the acceleration of digital transformation in the corporate world, a combinable, scalable and flexible system has become necessary to extend security controls to organizations' external digital assets.
By creating common cloud-based environments, security technology vendors provide interoperability between security tools, offering more resilient solutions with better performance, allowing security providers to take care of routine maintenance and updates.
This allows the cyber risk management team to focus on security strategies, policies and organizational culture.
This scenario requires IT managers to prioritize the following actions:
- Use cloud-based cybersecurity controls, regardless of the location of the assets.
- Choose interoperable and extensible security and technology analyses.
- Encourage network security engineers to develop adaptive trust models for high-performance security and access to cloud applications.
- Prioritize suppliers that allow political decisions to be made outside the tools.
Prioritizing security
The pandemic and remote working have changed security priorities in companies. The approach is now focused on features such as multi-factor authentication and zero-trust network access, rather than prioritizing identity. The new principle is to protect applications as if they were at public risk on the internet.
Thus, the efforts made to protect and maintain the traditional network perimeter need to be transferred or replicated to a new identity perimeter, using a new defense-in-depth approach.
These are practical actions for prioritizing security in cyber risk management:
- Create an inventory of remote access use cases and plan secure approaches for each one.
- Assess gaps in existing access features and consider additional security tools.
- Improve visibility and control of security processes.
- Assess in-house technical skills or consider managed service providers.
Privacy-enhancing computing protects data in untrusted environments, using techniques such as encryption on three levels: data, software and hardware.
Over the last few years, privacy legislation such as the LGPD has become a greater priority for companies, making privacy tools and techniques increasingly viable for combating third-party attacks and maintaining data confidentiality.
With cloud providers offering increasingly reliable execution environments, certain technologies, such as homomorphic encryption, for example, stand out among the main components of protection best practices.
In cyber risk management, it is important to identify situations to apply privacy-enhancing technology, evaluate the most appropriate approaches and plan long-term investments.
Providing a defensive and continuous cybersecurity posture, breach and attack simulations are gaining traction in companies' IT strategies. This is because organizations are better prepared to react to a cyberattack when they know their security breaches.
The complexity of security tools is increasing as they modernize, and the goal is to more assertively test the effectiveness of systems against cybercriminal strategies, using automation to validate security controls.
These are practical actions for simulating breaches in cyber risk management:
- Use simulation tools to test the effectiveness of security controls and prioritize future investments.
- Identify possible ways for attackers to access confidential data.
- Testing new security controls and technological resources for implementation.
These actions help to identify gaps and strengthen the cyber security of the business.
Implementing a complete cybersecurity strategy naturally requires a large number of security products and services, which means increased complexity and operating costs. As a result, there is a need to invest in a larger IT team with more specialized professionals to deal with this demand.
By opting for the support of security partners recognized in the market, such as Conversys, companies are able to direct their focus and efforts towards their core business, while their protection processes remain in the hands of true specialists, guaranteeing greater efficiency and performance for the business.
This way, your risk management becomes more assertive, simplifying operations, adding more value to the business and significantly reducing costs.
Large corporations around the world are already setting up internal committees to manage cyber risks. These committees, led by an experienced cybersecurity manager, arise due to a lack of confidence in security following incidents or regulatory changes.
Boards of directors also form committees dedicated to managing cyber risks in a confidential environment, improving attention to security beyond one-off audits.
Recommended actions for the establishment of Cyber Management committees:
- Anticipating business needs and changes, understanding the board's priorities and market trends.
- Work with other stakeholders to update the board's governance and oversight.
- Address cyber security risks in a business context, making them relevant to drive appropriate decisions and investments.
Considering that companies with well-structured risk management are better able to protect their operations and data, as well as increasing customer confidence and guaranteeing a prominent position in the market, implementing risk management in a way that is integrated with a business's IT strategies is a highly assertive decision.
It helps to anticipate threats and opportunities, improves relationships between teams, adds value to the organization, reduces costs and prevents breaches and leaks that could damage the company and its customers financially.
With highly qualified professionals and advanced security solutions, Conversys helps you protect your business strategically, ensuring the success and high performance of all projects and operations.
Start transforming your company's cybersecurity now.
