Security | Threat Detection | Cyberattacks | DevSecOps | Compliance

Healthcare is one of the most targeted sectors due to the large amounts of valuable patient data, medical records, and protected health information (PHI) that institutions handle. Additionally, the healthcare sector and its service providers are notoriously slow at adopting new technology, making them particularly vulnerable to external cyber attacks.

Building a cyber-resilient organization requires more than implementing the best cybersecurity practices. Cybersecurity must be woven into the culture of the organization from the top down. Because 95% of data breaches result from human error, creating a cybersecurity culture can significantly cut down on security breaches by emphasizing the importance of cybersecurity. Cybersecurity is only as strong as its weakest link.

The efficacy of an organization’s cybersecurity program is proportional to the level of awareness of its attack surface. Overlooking just one internet-facing asset could establish an attack vector leading to a devastating data breach. To learn how to ensure all of your internet-facings IT assets are accounted for in your cyber risk program, read on.

A lack of direct communication with your fourth-party vendors makes tracking their security risks difficult. Thankfully, there are methods of overcoming this issue to help you remain informed of emerging fourth-party risks to help you easily track emerging fourth-party threats within your Fourth-Party Risk Management program. To learn how UpGuard can help you track your fourth-party risk, click here to request a free trial.

5G refers to the 5th generation of mobile phone wireless network capability. It has captured attention and excitement because of its ability to connect people, objects, and devices more frequently and seamlessly than ever, along with its higher network speeds, extremely low latency, and more reliable network performance. It is relatively early in its evolution, but forecasts predict there will be more than 3.5 billion 5G connections worldwide by 2025.

Assessing cyber risk for potential vendors is one of the most important aspects of managing third-party risk for any organization. The vendor risk assessment process helps businesses decide which partners or service providers to work with and, more importantly, who to trust with their most sensitive data.

Vendor criticality is the level of risk that vendors are categorized into during the risk assessment phase. Determining vendor criticality is an essential part of the third-party risk management (TPRM) program to help organizations better prioritize their risk remediation goals. As part of the vendor risk assessment and vendor due diligence process, understanding the risk criticality levels of each vendor plays a huge role in preventing data breaches from occurring.

Let's be honest – nobody likes security questionnaires. To vendors, they're irritating workflow interruptions, always seeming to arrive at the most inconvenient times. To businesses, they mark the first stage of a long, drawn-out process where vendors need to be continuously pestered to complete them. In this post, we outline three proven strategies for streamlining the security questionnaire process to eliminate stress for both the businesses that send them and the vendors receiving them.

Vendor security questionnaires accurately evaluate a third-party supplier’s attack surface, but only if they’re utilized intelligently. The quality, and therefore, accuracy, of questionnaires rapidly deteriorates when they become excessively lengthy, one-size-fits-all templates bloated with jargon. In this post, we suggest x actions for improving the accuracy of your security questionnaires and the overall efficiency of your security questionnaire process.

Fourth-party risk management is the process of identifying, assessing, and mitigating the cybersecurity risks posed by the vendors of your third-party vendors (your vendor’s vendors). With digital transformation compressing the boundaries between IT ecosystems, any of your vendors could be transformed from trusted suppliers to critical data breach attack vectors if they’re compromised.