In today's interconnected and digital world, businesses face increasing risks, particularly in the realm of cybersecurity. To address these risks and ensure the operational resilience of financial institutions, industries and governments push for regulatory frameworks. Two prominent examples are the EU's Digital Operational Resilience Act (“DORA”) and the UK's Prudential Standard PS21/3 (“PS21/3”).

In an era of escalating financial crimes, the spotlight shines brightly on the rising concerns in the realm of cybersecurity. According to a recent survey, a staggering 68% of UK risk experts anticipate a surge in financial crime risks over the next year. These apprehensions echo globally, with 69% of executives and risk professionals worldwide foreseeing an upswing in financial crime risks, predominantly fueled by cybersecurity threats and data breaches.

The increasing sophistication and frequency of cyber threats have exposed companies to significant risks, including data breaches, financial losses, and reputational damage. Investors have become deeply concerned that these risks can negatively impact their investment decisions. As we have previously discussed, companies and their shareholders must tackle the significant and constantly changing challenge of understanding cybersecurity risk.

Your external attack surface is growing rapidly. The adoption of cloud technologies, business growth, a remote workforce, IoT, and a growing supply chain of digital vendors creates an enormous digital footprint and increased cyber risk. External attack surface management (EASM) can help you mitigate and manage this risk—proactively and at scale.

Any organization that relies on third-party vendors for critical business functions should develop and maintain an effective third-party risk management (TPRM) policy. A TPRM policy is the first document an organization should create when establishing its TPRM program. TPRM policies allow organizations to document internal roles and responsibilities, develop regulatory practices, and appropriately communicate guidelines to navigate third-party risks throughout the vendor lifecycle.

A Third-Party Risk Management Program (TPRM) is a systematic approach to mitigating risks associated with third parties, such as vendors, suppliers, and contractors. It includes an assessment process that identifies, evaluates, and remediates any risks affecting your organization. Implementing effective third-party risk management (TPRM) measures can safeguard organizations against potential threats and promote seamless and confident collaborations with external partners.

When it comes to improving your cybersecurity posture, few strategies have as much of an impact as your cyber risk remediation program. Efficient risk remediation ensures security risks and vulnerabilities are shut down faster, reducing the potential risks of data breaches and their financial impacts. The cornerstone of an efficient remediation program is cyber risk remediation software that automates manual processes to improve the efficacy of risk mitigation efforts.

Every successful risk management program works by identifying, analyzing, prioritizing, and mitigating risks. In most enterprises this process is repeated at regular intervals, so that organizations can generate data each time about the threats to business operations, the risk those threats pose, and the steps necessary to reduce risk. That is an enormous amount of data a company must track. To do so — and to do so smartly — companies can build a risk register.