Let’s talk about vendor security reviews. If you felt some form of unpleasant emotion just reading the phrase “vendor security review,” I understand. You and I are not so different. You have likely participated in completing at least one vendor security review in your career. During the process you may have questioned humanity, your career choice or at least whether or not your company should be doing business with the procuring organization.

Risk management is the process of identifying, evaluating, and controlling risks to an organization’s operations and financial performance. These dangers can be caused by several things, such as economic unpredictability, legal responsibilities, technological problems, strategic management blunders, accidents, and natural calamities. An effective risk management program helps a business navigate all potential hazards.

Data is one of the most valuable assets for modern organizations. The right type and quality of data allows companies to resolve problems and improve business performance; it guides enterprise decision-making and drives business strategy. Data is also vital to improve cybersecurity, maintain regulatory compliance, and strengthen the competitive posture. In short, data matters. Organizations must protect their data assets from unauthorized access, compromise, and theft.

All the risk management measures an organization might take to address cybersecurity threats depend on one critical question: What is the organization’s risk tolerance? Risk tolerance is a concept borrowed from investment strategy and is part of various risk assessment methodologies. Investors with high risk tolerance are willing to endure volatility in the stock market and engage in risky investments; those with a low risk tolerance are more cautious.

All organizations have a team of C-suite executives to set strategy and run the business. Typically that group looks quite similar from one organization to the next, with the chief executive officer, chief technology officer, and chief financial officer among the most important. But do you also have a chief risk officer? Do you even need a “CRO”? What are the CRO’s responsibilities, anyway; and what is his or her role in enterprise risk management (ERM)?

Risk is inseparable from the modern business landscape – and therefore, every company needs an effective risk management program to identify, assess, manage, and mitigate risk. Robust processes, solid internal controls, and an enterprise risk management framework can help an organization identify best practices, share knowledge, and track metrics to meet these strategic objectives. But another critical element to risk management binds all those other components together: risk culture.

Healthcare organizations such as hospitals and clinics are vulnerable to all manner of cyberattacks, particularly phishing and business email compromise (BEC) scams, man-in-the-middle (MitM) attacks, and data breaches. Third-party risks and ransomware risks are also serious security problems in healthcare, especially in the post-COVID era. The medical world had already noted such cyberattacks years ago. The COVID-19 pandemic only underlined those worries about cyber attacks.

It seems like the next flavor of cyberattack is always making the news, a constant reminder of how vigilant businesses need to be to try and keep themselves, their customers and their suppliers safe. Almost every organization of any size will have some sort of vulnerability assessment and management program, security hardening framework and basic training for employees to recognize malicious emails and phishing attacks.

The Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP) is a program run by the U.S. federal government to help cloud service providers bid on government contracts. Simply put, FedRAMP helps such providers achieve minimum standards of cybersecurity, so they can sell their cloud service offerings to federal government agencies more efficiently. All cloud service providers (CSPs) must achieve FedRAMP authorization to be able to contract with federal agencies.

There’s an old expression that says the most dangerous statement a person can make is “we’ve always done it this way.” I think we can all agree that we need to grow and adapt as the world around us changes. That’s why over the past few months, we’ve shown you ways to switch to a risk-first approach and align your risk and compliance activities to your business objectives.