Cyber innovation and digital transformation are moving at increasing speeds. With the shift to cloud-based software and assets, SaaS (software-as-a-service) applications, and the need for remote working, businesses are changing the way they approach risk management and the security of their digital assets.
In today’s fast-moving and competitive marketplace, you can barely find any businesses and merchants that still haven’t adopted the use of credit cards for their services. More than a third of American cardholders use credit cards for their transactions on a monthly basis. With the rising prevalence of identity theft, over 1.1 billion personal records were exposed by data breaches and credit card fraud alone.
The finance industry has the second highest average data breach costs at US$5.97 million per breach, according to IBM and Ponemon Institute’s 2022 Cost of a Data Breach report. While strict regulations force finance companies to invest heavily in protecting customer data, their third-party vendors don’t necessarily do the same. Finance security teams need a proactive approach to third-party risk management. Visibility into your vendor’s attack surface is critical.
Vulnerability remediation is the process of finding, addressing, and neutralizing security vulnerabilities within an organization’s IT environment, which can include computers, digital assets, networks, web applications, and mobile devices. Remediation is one of the most important steps in the vulnerability management process, which is critical for securing networks, preventing data loss, and enforcing business continuity.
Because information security has become increasingly important and businesses are heavily relying on worldwide connectivity, Cyber VRM solutions are necessary to protect against emerging cyber threats and secure data effectively. However, managing vendors, in addition to their cyber risks, can be a challenging and time-consuming effort that requires more efficient solutions.
Using best practices for cyber vendor risk management (Cyber VRM), organizations can identify, assess, and remediate their third-party vendor risks specifically related to cybersecurity. Organizations can utilize information attained from security ratings, data leak detection, and security questionnaires to evaluate their third-party security postures using dedicated Cyber VRM solutions.
According to a 2021 study by UpGuard, over 51% of analyzed Fortune 500 companies were unknowingly leaking sensitive metadata in public documents - data leaks that could be very useful in a reconnaissance campaign preceding a major data breach. Without timely detection solutions, all corporate (and personal) accounts impacted by data leaks are at a critical risk of compromise, which also places any associated private internal networks at a high risk of unauthorized access and sensitive data theft.
IT risk management and cybersecurity are two essential practices that define the effectiveness and security structure of modern organizations. IT risk management is the process of managing and mitigating risks via careful planning, specialized systems, guidelines, policies, and decisions across various sectors, not just cybersecurity. With IT risk management, the IT staff is focused entirely on IT risk mitigation.
Higher education institutions, like colleges and universities, often work with dozens of third-party vendors, which can introduce considerable security risks if the school doesn't maintain a proper vendor risk management (VRM) program. Compromised third parties can pose serious risks to universities, which can expose sensitive data, disrupt business continuity, or incur serious financial damages.
Cyber vendor risk management (Cyber VRM) is the practice of identifying, assessing, and remediating cybersecurity risks specifically related to third-party vendors. By leveraging data from data leak detection, security ratings, and security questionnaires, organizations can better understand their third-party vendor’s security posture using Cyber VRM solutions.
