Cyber VRM is the practice of identifying, assessing, and remediating the cybersecurity risks of third-party vendors. This involves combining objective, quantifiable data sources like security ratings and data leak detection with subjective qualitative data sources like security questionnaires and other security evidence to get a complete view of your third-party vendors’ security posture. A Cyber VRM solution facilitates this practice.

The technology industry is at the forefront of digital transformation, enabling all other industries to achieve greater operational capabilities and connectivity through innovative solutions. Tech companies, such as SaaS vendors, provide crucial software infrastructure to hundreds or even thousands of other organizations. These vendors access, store and transmit large volumes of sensitive information, including valuable healthcare and finance data.

Data governance is a broad term that refers to the strategy of managing availability, usability, standard compliance, consistency, data integrity, and data security in organizations and companies. While the term is notorious for escaping definitions, data governance is often defined as the first essential branch of data management strategy.

NIST SP 800-161 revision 1 outlines a cybersecurity framework for mitigating security risks in the supply chain. NIST SP-800-161 is a subset of NIST 800-53, a broader cyber risk mitigation framework that’s foundational to most cybersecurity programs. The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) designed NIST 800-161 to improve cyber supply chain risk management for all U.S federal agencies.

Organizations must implement effective account protection measures or put themselves at heightened risk of data breaches and other serious cyber attacks, such as ransomware injections. Multi-factor authentication (MFA) is a crucial component of any organization’s cybersecurity program. MFA adds an additional layer of security, helping prevent hackers from gaining unauthorized access to sensitive data.

The HECVAT (Higher Education Community Vendor Assessment Toolkit) is a security assessment framework in the form of a questionnaire that’s specifically designed for higher education institutions to measure vendor risk. HECVAT attempts to standardize higher education information security and data protection requirements for cloud service providers and third-party solutions, specifically for their consistency, compatibility, and ease of use.

‍NIST Special Publication 800-53 sets an exemplary standard for protecting sensitive data. Though originally designed for government agencies, the framework has become a popular inclusion in most security programs across a wide range of industries.

Global information technology (IT) spending on devices, data center systems/software, and communications services reached $4.26 trillion in 2021 and is expected to increase to around 4.43 trillion U.S. dollars at the end of 2022. With this new, skyrocketing growth, organizations face complex new compliance and IT security challenges in how data and information are stored.

‍Cybersecurity audits are essential for any organization to review, analyze, and update its current IT infrastructure, information security policies (ISP), and overall cybersecurity risk management protocols. Audits are a critical part of information security and should be performed annually to ensure that new policies are implemented properly, potential vulnerabilities are identified, and the school maintains compliance with regulatory standards.

The rapid increase of cybersecurity challenges in recent years, such as growing ransomware attacks, has forced the US to devise new mandatory regulations. These requirements are aimed to help combat cybercrime by increasing organizations’ level of cybersecurity capabilities. Complying with these regulations is necessary to keep organizations accountable for their mandatory security posture.