The manufacturing industry faces increasing scrutiny from regulatory agencies. As cybercriminals increasing target SCADA system weaknesses, an organization’s cybersecurity posture becomes more important to its ability to protect data and obtain important contracts. Starting with a security-first approach to cybersecurity often protects data, but to meet compliance requirements, the organization need to document the effectiveness of its internal controls.

Since financial services industry collects, stores, and transmits sensitive non-public informationinformatino, malicious actors continue to target it. As the financial services industry embraces digital transformation, it opens itself up to new risks. Cloud infrastructures act as a primary target, leading to new risks arising from the new technologies. Emerging risks facing the financial services industry require continuous monitoring to retain a robust cybersecurity posture.

A control weakness is a failure in the implementation or effectiveness of internal controls. Malicious actors leverage internal control weakness to circumvent even the most robust security measures. The wide range of internal controls, the increased number of new technologies, and the rate at which malware evolves necessitate data security control monitoring. Regularly monitoring allows organizations to test the effectiveness of their internal controls and expose weaknesses in their implementation.

Monitoring is an established component of the information security process which goes hand in hand with auditing. Auditing is used to document an organization’s compliance activities. Where monitoring protects the data by responding to threats, Auditing provides proof of a continued compliance effort. By taking a “security-first” approach, companies can use continuous auditing and monitoring to provide evidence of their cybersecurity protections.