How to Manage Your IT Risks and Plan Ahead with IT Confidence – Part One of Two

We see it every day.

Clients are taking huge risks with their IT deployment, policies, and facing the consequences with the public. To ensure optimal IT security, performance, and compliance for your company, it is of utmost importance to assess potential risks. A business that manages IT risk with integrated solutions and responds in real time to emerging threats, can more confidently embrace the benefits of improved business performance. Ignoring the risks, or worse, understanding them and continuing without a risk management mindset will lead to business disruption, and other consequences, including the risk of a cancelled cybersecurity insurance policy or poor public image.

From BYOD to IoT: Addressing Emerging Technologies in IT Risk Management

As technology continues to evolve and integrate itself into our daily lives, businesses are striving to keep up by implementing new and innovative technologies. However, with every new technology comes a new set of security risks and vulnerabilities which can be exploited by malicious hackers. This is particularly relevant in the case of BYOD (bring your own device) and IoT (Internet of Things) devices.

BYOD has become increasingly popular in the workplace, with employees bringing their own laptops, tablets, and smartphones, which are then used to access sensitive company data. While this can improve productivity and reduce costs for a company, it also poses significant security risks. Personal devices may not have the same level of security as company-owned equipment, which can lead to data breaches and other security issues.

Similarly, IoT devices have become prevalent in many businesses, with everything from connected coffee machines to smart thermostats being used in the workplace. Unfortunately, these devices often lack built-in security features, such as encryption, and can be exploited by hackers to access sensitive data.

Common IT Risks and Vulnerabilities

There are numerous IT risks and vulnerabilities that can impact businesses of all sizes and industries, which could potentially deepen their risk exposure. Here is a brief overview of some of the most common IT risks and associated vulnerabilities:

1. Malware: Malware, such as viruses, worms, and Trojan horses, can compromise sensitive data and cause significant harm to a business's IT infrastructure or network.

2. Phishing: Phishing attacks often involve tricking users into divulging sensitive information or gaining unauthorized access to a network or system by way of spoofed emails or websites.

3. Human error: Human error is a common vulnerability that can lead to data breaches, including sending sensitive information through unencrypted channels, or workflows that are vulnerable to interception and can often be exploited by cybercriminals.

4. Social engineering: Social engineering attacks leverage the human element in cybersecurity by manipulating people into revealing sensitive data, changing security configurations or system settings, or violating security protocols.

5. Internet of Things (IoT) devices: IoT devices, due to their rapid increase and lack of security standards, are notoriously vulnerable and can be exploited to gain unauthorized access to networks, operate as bots in botnets, and compromise sensitive data stored on networked systems.

6. Employee Access Rights: Poorly configured or managed employee access rights can be a significant vulnerability. Once an employee's access credentials have been compromised, cybercriminals may obtain their entire data access rights.

7. Third-party providers: Third-party providers with access to sensitive information can introduce vulnerabilities with their access points to confidential data or weak IT security protocols, ensuring that they are being followed is essential.
 
It is critical that businesses implement robust IT security measures, including employee training, security controls, access controls, and threat monitoring, to prevent such IT risks and associated vulnerabilities. Hackers exploit security weaknesses continuously, and businesses need to recognize that staying ahead of these adversaries requires a robust and agile IT risk management program to ensure adequate protection. To address these emerging technologies in IT risk management, businesses must take proactive steps to secure their networks and devices. This includes implementing advanced security measures such as encryption, firewalls, and access controls. Additionally, businesses must ensure that employees are educated on the importance of device security and are trained to identify potential security risks.

Who is Responsible for IT Risk Management?

As one of the primary jobs and obligations, risk management is a critical part for any CFO; and should involve the company's CIO. Since accounting and IT overlap, their teams need to unite to identify risks as well as reduce vulnerabilities of both business operations and its IT infrastructure. To ensure that this process runs smoothly, it is ultimately up to the CEO to be accountable for implementing risk management policies, reviewing them periodically, allocating resources accordingly while also defining principles necessary for long-term success.

Examining the environment from a comprehensive perspective to identify potential risks, vulnerabilities and mitigation strategies is essential for developing an effective defense-in-depth structure. By monitoring risk levels and providing regular reports, one can ensure that all security measures are adequately enforced.

Vigilance and Monitoring Bolster Greater Risk Confidence

Performing a real-time IT risk assessment requires continual monitoring and analysis of network activity, as well as the use of specialized software to detect potential vulnerabilities and threats. Here are some specific tools and steps that can be used to perform a real-time IT risk assessment:

1. Network Monitoring: By monitoring your network activity in real-time, you can quickly detect and respond to potential security threats.

2. Vulnerability Scanning: Vulnerability scanning tools help identify known vulnerabilities.

3. Log Analysis: Real-time log analysis tools help identify potential security breaches by monitoring log events in real-time. These logs contain information about user activities, system events, and other network events.

4. Compliance Auditing: Auditing your system against industry or regulatory requirements such as HIPAA or NIST can reveal gaps in security measures before they are exploited.

5. Threat Intelligence: By keeping updated with the latest threats and vulnerabilities, businesses can remain one step ahead of malicious actors.

To ensure the security of your business operations and IT infrastructure, it is essential to take a proactive approach to IT risk management. By monitoring network activity in real-time, performing regular vulnerability scans, analyzing log events for suspicious activities, conducting compliance audits and gathering threat intelligence on an ongoing basis, businesses can stay one step ahead of malicious actors and reduce their exposure to potential risks. It's important that companies have both CFOs and CIOs working together towards effective risk management policies as well as allocating resources accordingly, so they can remain secure while also protecting sensitive data. With these measures in place, businesses will be better prepared against cyber threats now more than ever before.

What's the Best 'Next Step Advice' For The CEO Focused On Risk Management?

The best 'next step advice' for a CEO focused on risk management is to ensure that their organization has a robust and continuously evolving IT risk management program in place. It is no longer sufficient for businesses to have an IT department solely responsible for managing risks and vulnerabilities. It must now involve the entire organization to be resilient, responsive, and proactive against IT risks.

Here are some specific next steps to take for a CEO focused on risk management:

1. Identify key stakeholders: Identify and establish relationships with key internal and external stakeholders specific to the IT risk management program such as corporate security, IT, and the risk management team.

2. Conduct an IT risk assessment: An IT risk assessment includes a comprehensive analysis of the organization's IT infrastructure, potential vulnerabilities, and existing controls. This will help prioritize the most significant IT risks affecting the organization.

3. Review your IT risk management framework: Review and update your IT risk management framework to focus on both immediate and long-term risk mitigation initiatives.

4. Establish an IT governance framework: Establish proper IT governance frameworks that crosscuts the enterprise, including operations, enterprise security and privacy practices.

5. Implement security controls: Establish security controls management, monitoring, and maintenance to ensure that they are effective and provide the best protection against IT risks and potential cybersecurity threats such as malware attacks, social engineering attempts, and data loss.
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6.   Integrate culture and training: Lead by example. Employees easily recognize management that is not serious about security and who take shortcuts to bypass processes. Culture is a key component in security awareness, and training employees on potential security risks is an essential part of creating a resilient IT risk management framework.

This advice focuses on a comprehensive approach to risk management, which involves investing in the right technology solutions and processes and training employees to identify, mitigate and respond to potential IT risks. By prioritizing IT risk management, CEOs can help their organization build a secure environment while also contributing to increased productivity, decreased downtime, and increased brand reputation.

Take The Next Step Toward Managing Your Risk

In service to our clients, we conduct a series of assessments and scans to help develop a clear picture of their risk posture, in the context of their overall business risk tolerance. We can also set you up with phishing campaigns to test employee vulnerabilities and training courses.
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If you would like to get a clear picture of your IT risks, the risk gap, and your biggest vulnerabilities, then take the next step and request a phone consultation to learn more about our process.

Call 508-528-7720 or send an email to [email protected] to schedule a time to meet – at your office via Zoom, or on the phone.