What is Risk Management?
Businesses must take risks in order to succeed and grow. However, while success depends on taking risks, it is equally important to ensure proper risk management practices to avoid adverse impacts to your organization. Cybersecurity Risk Management is the set of business practices that creates a balance between taking risks and the effort required to protect against them.
Every year, the risk of cybersecurity attacks rises due to constantly evolving technologies, and the arrival of new technologies in the market. Simultaneously, bad actors seek to find and exploit vulnerabilities in many widely-used services and devices. Many businesses underestimate the importance of a risk management framework, and it ends up costing them when they least expect.
As technology is now an integral part of operations, more and more businesses are moving critical operations to the cloud. With the migration of data and critical services to distributed, accessible locations online, they become targets for bad actors and cybercriminals. Without proper risk management, businesses are likely to encounter to data modification and data theft.
Standards and Framework
It is important for businesses to set and meet risk management standards and the best way to properly execute cyber risk management is to have an effective framework.
Every business forms their own risk management framework that fits their mission and vision. There are some basic practices that businesses can use to kickstart their cyber risk management framework.
- Identify Risks – The first step to building the framework is to identify risks. Risks can take the form of It is important to think outside the box and prepare for potential risks as well as include previous attacks.
- Assess Risks – After making a list of all possible risks, the next step is to assess them. The best way is to do an in-depth analysis of all potential attack vectors your organization can expect to encounter.
- Prioritize Risks – The next step after analyzing all threats is to rank them in order of importance. While it is important to have a plan in place for every possible attack, it is not feasible to execute all of them at once. Hence, businesses should prioritize risks based on their likelihood and impact.
- Develop Strategies – After ranking the risks in the order of priority, the next step is to research the different strategies. It is always essential to approach risks from different angles and to have a backup strategy in case the main strategy fails.
- Implement Strategies – The next step after developing the strategies to ensure proper implementation of security controls. Controls will need to be documented and tested to make sure they work as expected.
- Monitor Strategies – The final and most important step is to continuously monitor the network environment. Internal cybersecurity teams should have a formalized incident response process, and regularly test the systems to ensure they work. It is also important to research and assess new security developments and technologies and modify your risk management strategy accordingly.
Risk Management Practices
The best strategy for Cyber Risk Management is to create a risk culture. A strong risk culture is when all the employees share the same values, beliefs and goals. While the main practices are executed by senior management and the cybersecurity team, it is important to keep all employees updated on the past, current, potential future risks, and how to properly handle risks.
Businesses can train their employees in the following different ways:
- Training Seminars – Businesses can hold bi-weekly or monthly training sessions to ensure everyone is aware of security risks and the procedures for mitigating them.
- Team-building Exercises – Businesses can implement team-building exercises by creating case studies and having the employees work in teams to solve risks.
- Courses – Businesses can train their employees by conducting training exercises or having them take courses in cybersecurity which ensures better understanding of the different risks and boosts their confidence.
Technuf and Risk Management
Proper Cyber Risk Management is an integral part of a business’ success. In addition to having a strong risk management team, it is also important for businesses to consult cybersecurity specialist firms regarding risk management planning.
At Technuf, we are always committed to providing the best Risk Management services to our clients. As a tech company, we are constantly researching emerging methodologies in the cyber world and developing innovative ways to help keep your business assets secure.
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