Cyber Risk Assessment Framework - The Path to Resilience

Cyber risk assessments

The path to cyber resilience

In an age of competing priorities and limited resources, organizations need to identify and prioritize investment in those cyber capabilities that will contribute most to maturing their overall cyber resilience.

Priorities matter ….

Risk assessments are the cornerstone of any successful cyber security strategy. They focus attention on the most important threats and opportunities your organization faces, and lay the groundwork for implementing effective, proportionate, and optimized risk management strategies.

STRATIUUM’s Cyber Risk Assessment methodology incorporates our knowledge of the cyber risk landscape, our experience assessing cyber capabilities, and our extensive expertise evaluating cyber security programs. The assessment enables you to visualize your current cyber risk posture and identify hidden gaps to be investigated and mitigated, at the same time as providing you with a clear path forward to enhancing your organization’s cyber risk resilience and preparedness.

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ASSESSING YOUR CYBER RISKS

Our assessment process is simple, practical, and easy to understand. We work with you and your teams to tailor our methodology to reflect the size, scope, and complexity of your organization, creating an effective and sustainable approach that sets you up to assess the true nature of your cyber risk exposure and potential threats to your mission-critical assets.

A repeatable and measurable process

1. PREPARE ASSESSMENT FRAMEWORK

The first activity within the risk assessment process is to define the purpose and scope, and develop a common set of assessment criteria to be applied consistently across those informational assets necessary to achieve your business’ mission, strategy, and objectives

2. EVALUATE THREAT LANDSCAPE

Next, we assess your exposure to particular threats, and consider who might want to attack your organization (actor), and how they might attack (technique). From here we construct specific threat scenarios as they relate to your “crown jewels”

3. ASSESS IMPACT AND LIKELIHOOD

Armed with this information we assess the impact and likelihood of each threat scenario and assign a risk rating. Impact refers to the extent to which the threat event might affect the enterprise, likelihood represents the possibility that a given event will occur

4. ANALYZE CONTROL ENVIRONMENT

With a clear view of your organization’s inherent risk exposure, we set to determine the current state maturity of your cyber capabilities and identify compensating controls for each threat scenario identified

5. EVALUATE VULNERABILITIES

Vulnerability refers to your organization’s susceptibility to each threat scenario, taking into account your current level of preparedness. We assign a residual risk rating following evaluation of the control environment to help you gauge how well you are managing your cyber risks

6. STRATEGIC PLANNING

Using the results as a baseline, we work with you to develop a path to enhance your cyber security posture. Improvements are prioritized based on various factors e.g. resource availability, benefits, and ease of implementation, to formulate a progressive roadmap that helps you mature your cyber resilience

PUTTING IT INTO PRACTICE

The risk assessment cannot exist in a vacuum or it becomes a fruitless exercise. The process must be embedded in your wider cyber risk management program that uses the information obtained during the risk assessment process to make decisions about risk responses and monitoring, and feeds information back into the strategic planning process.

TACTICAL FIXES

ENHANCEMENTS

STRATEGIC RESPONSES

BUILDING RESILIENCE

Keeping the risk assessment current

The threat landscape is not static. Cyber adversaries are relentless in finding new ways to attack. Complicating this further, many of the fundamental moves businesses undertake to improve performance expose them to new cyber risks, e.g. extension of third-party networks and relationships, outsourcing, adoption of new technologies, movement to the cloud, and mergers and acquisitions.

The dynamic nature of cyber risk requires organizations to continually monitor and reassess their threat exposures to ensure cyber risk levels are understood and managed within defined tolerance thresholds. Only through an ongoing cycle of maintaining and updating your risk assessments can you manage cyber risk proactively, comprehensively, and effectively, without stifling your company’s ability to innovate and execute against its business mission and goals.

PREPARING TODAY TO BE RESILIENT TOMORROW

It would be wholly impracticable to have zero tolerance to cyber risk. Firms have to prioritize their cyber efforts to maximize the return on their investments in security defenses.

As the spotlight on cyber continues to intensify, with increasing demands and scrutiny from a variety of stakeholders – institutional investors, activists, the media, regulators and customers – STRATIUUM’s Cyber Risk Assessment can help you discern the true nature of your organization’s threats and vulnerabilities, setting you up to progressively harden your security posture and make informed governance, investment and organizational design decisions that strengthen your overall cyber resilience.

To learn more about our Cyber Risk Assessment or Cyber Resilience Solutions, please contact us.

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spotlight on | the “internet of things”

outsmarting the smart device

We are experiencing unprecedented growth in connectivity between the digital and physical worlds, where data resides in the cloud, on mobile technology and devices connected to the “Internet of Things” (IoT). While the opportunities are fascinating, cyber security is the leading challenge when it comes to the adoption of IoT technology because insecure interfaces increase the risk of unauthorized access.

Cyber adversaries are innovative, organized, and relentless in finding new ways to infiltrate, corrupt and weaponize whatever touches the internet – often bit by bit. Rather than simply going straight after the larger, and often better protected, intended target, adversaries worm their way into that organization’s supply chain, using smaller, less secure trusted partners and suppliers to gather intelligence and set traps.

While a largely regulation-free tech industry may soon be a thing of the past, for now, in a world which lets anyone build and share new code and services, with consequences to be dealt with later, security concerns over those seemingly innocuous devices should not be overlooked.

find out more about THE “INTERNET OF THINGS”