Sep 20 2023

Balancing budget and system security: Approaches to risk tolerance

Category: Risk Assessment,Security Risk Assessmentdisc7 @ 10:56 am

Recently, it was revealed that Nickelodeon, an American TV channel and brand, has been the victim of a data leak. According to sources, the breach occurred at the beginning of 2023, but much of the data involved was “related to production files only, not long-form content or employee or user data, and (appeared) to be decades old.” The implication of this ambiguous statement: because the data is old and not related to individuals’ personally identifiable information (PII) or any proprietary information that hasn’t already been publicly released, this is a non-incident.

Let’s say Nickelodeon didn’t suffer any material harm because of this incident — great! It’s probable, though, that there are facts we don’t know. Any time proprietary data ends up where it shouldn’t, warning bells should go off in security professionals’ heads. What would be the outcome if the “decades old” files did contain PII? Some of the data would be irrelevant, but some could be crucial. What if the files contained other protected or private data? What if they compromised the integrity of the brand? All organizations need to think through the “what ifs” and apply the worst and base case scenarios to their current security practices.

The Nickelodeon case raises the question of whether keeping “decades old” data is necessary. While holding onto historical data can, in some cases, benefit the organization, every piece of kept data increases the company’s attack surface and increases risk. Why did Nickelodeon keep the old files in a location where it could be easily accessed? If the files were in a separate location, the security team likely did not apply adequate controls to accessing the files. Given that the cost of securing technology and all its inherent complexity is already astronomically high, CISOs need to prioritize budgetary and workforce allocation for all security projects and processes, including those for all past, present, and future data protection.

In a slow economy, balancing system security and budget requires skill and savvy. Even in boom times, though, throwing more money at the problem doesn’t always help. There is no evidence that an increase in security spending proportionately improves an organization’s security posture. In fact, some studies suggest that an overabundance of security tools leads to more confusion and complexity. CISOs should therefore focus on business risk tolerance and reduction.

Approaches to cyber risk management

Because no two organizations are alike, every CISO must find a cyber risk management approach that aligns with the goals, culture, and risk tolerance of the organization. Budget plays an important role here, too, but securing more budget will be an easier task if the security goals align with those of the business. After taking stock of these considerations, CISOs may find that their organizations fall into one or more core approaches to risk management.

Risk tolerance-based approach

Every company– and even every department within a company– has a tolerance for the amount and type of risk they’re willing to take. Security-specific tolerance levels must be based on desired business outcomes; cyber security risk cannot be determined or calculated based on cybersecurity efforts alone, rather how those efforts support the larger business.

To align cybersecurity with business risk, security teams must address business resilience by considering the following questions:

  • How would the business be impacted if a cybersecurity event were to occur?
  • What are the productivity, operational, and financial implications of a cyber event or data breach?
  • How well equipped is the business to handle an event internally?
  • What external resources would be needed to support internal capabilities?

With answers to these types of questions and metrics to support them, cyber risk levels can be appropriately set.

Maturity-based approach

Many companies today estimate their cyber risk tolerance based on how mature they perceive their cybersecurity team and controls to be. For instance, companies with an internal security operations center (SOC) that supports a full complement of experienced staff might be better equipped to handle continuous monitoring and vulnerability triage than a company just getting its security team up and running. Mature security teams are good at prioritizing and remediating critical vulnerabilities and closing the gaps on imminent threats, which generally gives them a higher security risk tolerance.

That said, many SOC teams are too overwhelmed with data, alerts, and technology maintenance to focus on risk reduction. The first thing a company must do if it decides to take on a maturity-based approach is to honestly assess its own level of security maturity, capabilities, and efficacy. A truly mature cybersecurity organization isbetter equipped to manage risk, but self-awareness is vital for security teams regardless of maturity level.

Budget-based approach

Budget constraints are prevalent in all aspects of business today, and running a fully staffed, fully equipped cybersecurity program is no bargain in terms of cost. However, organizations with an abundance of staff and technology don’t necessarily perform better security- or risk-wise. It’s all about being budget savvy for what will be a true compliment to existing systems.

Invest in tools that move the organization toward a zero trust-based architecture, focusing on security foundation and good hygiene first. By laying the right foundations, and having competent staff to manage them, cybersecurity teams will be better off than having the latest and greatest tools implemented without mastering the top CIS Controls: Inventory and control of enterprise and software assets, basic data protection, secure configuration management, hardened access management, log management, and more.

Threat-based approach

An important aspect of a threat-based approach to risk management is understanding that vulnerabilities and threats are not the same thing. Open vulnerabilities can lead to threats (and should therefore be a standard part of every organization’s security process and program). “Threats,” however, refer to a person/persons or event in which a vulnerability has the potential to be exploited. Threats also rely on context and availability of a system or a resource.

For instance, the Log4Shell exploit took advantage of a Log4j vulnerability. The vulnerability resulted in a threat to organizations with an unpatched version of the utility running. Organizations that were not running unpatched versions — no threat.

It is therefore imperative for organizations to know concretely:

  • All assets and entities present in their IT estates
  • The security hygiene of those assets (point in time and historical)
  • Context of the assets (non-critical, business-critical; exposed to the internet or air-gapped; etc.)
  • Implemented and operational controls to secure those assets

With this information and context, security teams can start to build threat models appropriate for the organization and its risk tolerance. The threat models used will, in turn, allow teams to prioritize and manage threats and more effectively reduce risk.

People, process and technology-based approach

People, process, and technology (PPT) are often considered the “three pillars” of technology. Some security pros consider PPT to be a framework. Through whatever lens PPT is viewed, it is the most comprehensive approach to risk management.

A PPT approach has the goal of allowing security teams to holistically manage risk while incorporating an organization’s maturity, budget, threat profile, human resources, skill sets, and the entirety of the organization’s tech stack, as well as its operations and procedures, risk appetite, and more. A well-balanced PPT program is a multi-layered plan that relies evenly on all three pillars; any weakness in one of the areas tips the scales and makes it harder for security teams to achieve success — and manage risk.

The wrap up

Every organization should carefully evaluate its individual capabilities, business goals, and available resources to determine the best risk management strategy for them. Whichever path is chosen, it is imperative for security teams to align with the business and involve organizational stakeholders to ensure ongoing support.

RISK ASSESSMENT: AN INDEPTH GUIDE TO PRINCIPLES, METHODS, BEST PRACTISE, AND INTERVIEW QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

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Tags: risk tolerance


Mar 12 2023

Security Risk Assessment Services

Category: Risk Assessment,Security Risk AssessmentDISC @ 11:16 pm

Security risk assessment services are crucial in the cybersecurity industry as they help organizations identify, analyze, and mitigate potential security risks to their systems, networks, and data. Here are some opportunities for providing security risk assessment services within the industry:

  1. Conducting Vulnerability Assessments: As a security risk assessment service provider, DISC can conduct vulnerability assessments to identify potential vulnerabilities in an organization’s systems, networks, and applications. You can then provide recommendations to mitigate these vulnerabilities and enhance the organization’s overall security posture.
  2. Performing Penetration Testing: Penetration testing involves simulating a real-world attack on an organization’s systems and networks to identify weaknesses and vulnerabilities. As a security risk assessment service provider, DISC can perform penetration testing to identify potential security gaps and provide recommendations to improve security.
  3. Risk Management: DISC can help organizations identify and manage risks associated with their information technology systems, data, and operations. This includes assessing potential threats, analyzing the impact of these threats, and developing plans to mitigate them.
  4. Compliance Assessment: DISC can help organizations comply with regulatory requirements by assessing their compliance with industry standards such as ISO 27001, HIPAA, or NIST-CSF. DISC can then provide recommendations to ensure that the organization remains compliant with these standards.
  5. Cloud Security Assessments: As more organizations move their operations to the cloud, there is a growing need for security risk assessment services to assess the security risks associated with cloud-based systems and applications. As a service provider, DISC can assess cloud security risks and provide recommendations to ensure the security of the organization’s cloud-based operations.
  6. Security Audit Services: DISC can provide security audit services to assess the overall security posture of an organization’s systems, networks, and applications. This includes reviewing security policies, processes, and procedures and providing recommendations to improve security.

By providing these services, DISC can help organizations identify potential security risks and develop plans to mitigate them, thereby enhancing their overall security posture.

In what situations would a vCISO Service be appropriate?

Transition plan from ISO 27001 2013 to ISO 27001 2022

We’d love to hear from you! If you have any questions, comments, or feedback, please don’t hesitate to contact us. Our team is here to help and we’re always looking for ways to improve our services. You can reach us by email (info@deurainfosec.com), or through our website’s contact form

Contact DISC InfoSec if you need further assistance in your ISO 27001 2022 transition Plan

InfoSec Threats | InfoSec books | InfoSec tools | InfoSec services

Tags: Security Risk Assessment


Feb 27 2023

Understanding Cyber Risk Quantification: The Buyer’s Guide” by Jack Jones

Category: Risk Assessment,Security Risk AssessmentDISC @ 11:42 am

Version 2 Updated for Release – February 2023. 

From Jack Jones, Chairman of the FAIR Institute and creator of the FAIR model for cyber risk quantification (CRQ) — the definitive guide to understanding CRQ: What it is (and isn’t), its value proposition and limitations, and facts regarding the misperceptions that are commonplace. 

If you’re considering or are actively shopping for an analysis solution that treats cyber risk in financially-based business terms, Jack’s extensive, jargon-free guide — including an evaluation checklist — will give you the objective and practical advice you need.

And just in time. There’s never been more interest or, frankly, confusion in the marketplace over what exactly is cyber risk quantification. As you’ll read in this buyer guide, many solutions may count vulnerabilities, provide ordinal values, or deliver numeric “maturity” scores but don’t measure risk, let alone put a financial value on it to help make business decisions.

This paper answers questions such as:

  • What does CRQ provide that I’m not already getting from other cyber risk-related measurements?
  • What makes CRQ reliable? Why should I believe the numbers?
  • Do I have enough data to run an analysis?

Jack also provides red flags to look out for in CRQ solutions, such as:

  • Mis-identification of risks.
  • Mis-use of control frameworks as risk measurement tools.
  • Over-simplification that can result in poorly-informed decisions, especially when performed at scale.

The ‘Understanding Cyber Risk Quantification’ guide is designed to be of use to security and risk executives, industry analysts, consultants, auditors, investors, and regulators–essentially anyone who has a stake in how well cyber risk is managed.

Download Below

DOWNLOAD NOW

Tags: CRQ, cyber risk quantification


Jan 04 2023

Ransomware Risk Management

Category: Ransomware,Risk AssessmentDISC @ 12:15 pm

A Cybersecurity Framework Profile

Infosec books | InfoSec tools | InfoSec services

Tags: ransomware, Ransomware Protection Playbook


Nov 28 2022

Best practices for implementing a company-wide risk analysis program

Category: Risk Assessment,Security Risk AssessmentDISC @ 11:36 pm

The associated risk management programs are also constantly evolving, and that’s likely due to outside influences such as client contract requirements, board requests and/or specific security incidents that require security teams to rethink and strengthen their strategy. Not surprisingly, CISO’s today face several dilemmas: How do I define the business impact of a cyber event? How much will it cost to protect our company’s most valuable assets? Which investments will make the business most secure? How do we avoid getting sidetracked by the latest cyber breach headline?

A mature risk analysis program can be thought of as a pyramid. Customer-driven framework compliance forms the base (PCI/ISO frameworks required for revenue generation); then incident-driven infrastructure security in the middle (system-focused security based on known common threats and vulnerabilities); with analysis-driven comprehensive coverage at the pinnacle (identification of assets, valuations, and assessment of threat/vulnerability risk).

risk analysis

How do you kickstart that program? Here are five steps that I’ve found effective for getting risk analysis off the ground.

Determine enterprise-specific assets

The first step is determining what is critical to protect. Unlike accounting assets (e.g., servers, laptops, etc.), in cybersecurity terms this would include things that are typically of broader business value. Often the quickest path is to talk with the leads for different departments. You need to understand what data is critical to the functioning of each group, what information they hold that would be valuable to competitors (pricing, customers, etc.) and what information disclosures would hurt customer relationships (contract data, for instance).

Also assess whether each department handles trade secrets, or holds patents, trademarks, and copyrights. Finally, assess who handles personally identifiable information (PII) and whether the group and its data are subject to regulatory requirements such as GDPR, PCI DSS, CCPA, Sarbanes Oxley, etc.

When making these assessments, keep three factors in mind: what needs to be safe and can’t be stolen, what must remain accessible for continued function of a given department or the organization, and what data/information must be reliable (i.e., that which can’t be altered without your knowledge) for people to do their jobs.

Value the assets

Once you’ve identified these assets, the next step is to attach a value. Again, I make three recommendations: keep it simple, make (informed) assumptions, and err on the side of overestimating. The reason for these recommendations is that completing a full asset valuation for an enterprise would take years and wouldn’t ever be finished (because assets constantly change).

Efficient risk analysis requires a more practical approach that uses broad categories, which can then be prioritized to understand where deeper analysis is needed. For instance, you might use the following categories, and assign values based on informed assumptions:

  • Competitive advantage – the items/processes/data that are unique to your company and based on experience. These are items that would be of value to a competitor to build on. To determine value, consider the cost of growing a legitimate competitor in your dominant market from scratch, including technology and overhead.
  • Client relationships – what directly impacts customer relationships, and therefore revenue. This includes “availability” impacts from outages, SLAs, etc. Value determination will likely be your annual EBIT goal, and impact could be adjusted by a Single Loss Exposure.
  • Third-party partnerships – relating to your ability to initiate, maintain or grow partner networks, such as contractors, ISPs or other providers. When valuing, consider the employee labor cost needed to recruit and maintain those partners.
  • Financial performance – items that impact your company’s ability to achieve financial goals. Again, valuation might equate to annual EBIT.
  • Employee relations – the assets that impact your ability to recruit and retain employees. Valuation should consider the volume of potential losses and associated backfill needs, including base salaries, bonuses, benefit equivalencies, etc.

Determine relevant threats, assess vulnerability, and identify exposures

When it comes to analyzing risk from threats, vulnerabilities and exposures, start with the common security triad model for information security. The three pillars – Confidentiality, Integrity and Availability (CIA) – help guide and focus security teams as they assess the different ways to address each concern.

Confidentiality touches on data security and privacy; it entails not only keeping data safe, but also making sure only those who need access, have it.

Integrity reflects the need to make sure data is trustworthy and tamper-free. While data accuracy can be compromised by simple mistakes, what the security team is more concerned with is intentional compromise that’s designed to harm the organization.

Availability is just what it sounds like – making sure that information can be accessed where and when needed. Availability is an aspect of the triad where security teams need to coordinate closely with IT on backup, redundancy, failover, etc. That said, it also involves everything from secure remote access to timely patches and updates to preventing acts of sabotage like denial of service or ransomware attacks.

In undertaking this part of the risk assessment, you’re using this security triad to determine threats, and then identifying exposure and assessing vulnerability to better estimate both the potential impact and probability of occurrence. Once these determinations are made, you’re ready for the next step.

Define risk

AV = assigned Asset Value (quantitative/qualitative) as identified above.
EF = the Exposure Factor, a subjective assessment of the potential percentage loss to the asset if a specific threat is realized. For example, an asset may be degraded by half, giving an EF of 0.50.

From this we can calculate the Single Loss Expectancy (SLE) – the monetary value from one-time risk to an asset – by multiplying AV and EF. As an example, if the asset value is $1M, and the exposure factor from a threat is a 50% loss (0.50) then the SLE will be $500,000.

Risk definition also takes this one step further by using this SLE and multiplying it by a potential Annualized Rate of Occurrence (ARO) to come up with the Annualized Loss Expectancy (ALE). This helps us understand the potential risk over time.

When working through these figures, it’s important to recognize that potential loss and probability of occurrence are hard to define, and thus the potential for error is high. That’s why I encourage keeping it simple and overestimating when valuing assets – the goal is to broadly assess the likelihood and impact of risk so that we can better focus resources, not to get the equations themselves perfectly accurate.

Implement and monitor safeguards (controls)

Now that we have a better handle on the organizational risks, the final steps are more familiar territory for many security teams: implementing and monitoring the necessary and appropriate controls.

You’re likely already very familiar with these controls. They are the countermeasures – policies, procedures, plans, devices, etc. – to mitigate risk.

Controls fall into three categories: preventative (before an event), detective (during) and corrective (after). The goal is to try to stop an event before it happens, quickly react once it does, and efficiently get the organization back on its feet afterward.

Implementing and monitoring controls are where the rubber hits the road from a security standpoint. And that’s the whole point of the risk analysis, so that security professionals can best focus efforts where and how appropriate to mitigate overall organizational risk.

Security Risk Management: Building an Information Security Risk Management Program from the Ground Up

Tags: risk analysis program


Nov 16 2022

Risk Management Toolkit

“By implementing sound #management of our #risks and the threats and opportunities that flow from them we will be in a stronger position to deliver our organisational objectives, provide improved services to the community, achieve better value for money and demonstrate compliance with the Local Audit and Accounts Regulations. #Riskmanagement will therefore be at the heart of our good management practice and corporate governance arrangements.”

Tags: Risk Management Toolkit


Oct 20 2022

Why chasing risk assessments will have you chasing your tail

Category: Risk Assessment,Security Risk AssessmentDISC @ 10:07 am

Third-party risk assessments are often described as time-consuming, repetitive, overwhelming, and outdated. Think about it: organizations, on average, have over 5,000 third parties, meaning they may feel the need to conduct over 5,000 risk assessments. In the old school method, that’s 5,000 redundant questionnaires. 5,000 long-winded Excel sheets. No wonder they feel this way.

The reason why risk assessments have become so dreaded is that it has always been a process of individual inspection and evaluation. For perspective, that’s roughly 14 risk assessments completed per day in the span of one year. How can we expect security, risk, and procurement professionals to get any other work done with this type of task on their plate? With the state of today’s threat landscape, wouldn’t you rather your security team be focused on actual analysis and mitigation, rather than just assessing? And, not to mention the fact that a tedious risk assessment process will contribute to burnout that can lead to poor employee retention within your security team. With how the cybersecurity job market is looking now, this isn’t a position any organization wants to be in.

So, now that you know how the people actually with their ‘hands in the pot’ feel about risk assessments, let’s take a look at why this approach is flawed and what organizations can do to build a better risk assessment process.

The never-ending risk assessment carousel ride

The key to defeating cybercriminals is to be vigilant and proactive. Not much can be done when you’re reacting to a security incident as the damage is already done. Unfortunately, the current approach to risk management is reactive, and full of gaps that do not provide an accurate view into overall risk levels. How so? Current processes only measure a point-in-time and do not account for the period while the assessment is being completed–or any breaches that occurred after the assessment was submitted. In other words, assessments will need to be routinely refilled out, a never-ending carousel ride, which is not feasible.

It should come to no surprise that assessments are not updated nearly as much as they should be, and that’s to no one’s fault. No one has the time to continually fill out long, redundant Excel sheets. And, not to mention, unless the data collected is standardized, very little can be done with it from an analysis point of view. As a result, assessments are basically thrown in a drawer and never see the light of day.

Every time a third-party breach occurs there is a groundswell of concern and company executives and board members immediately turn to their security team to order risk assessments, sending them on a wild goose chase. What they don’t realize is that ordering assessments after a third-party breach has occurred is already too late. And the organizations that are chosen for a deeper assessment are most likely not the ones with the highest risk. Like a never-ending carousel ride, the chase for risk assessments will never stop unless you hop off the ride now.

Show me the data!

The secret ingredient for developing a better risk management collection process is standardized data. You can’t make bread without flour, and you can’t have a robust risk management program without standardized data. Standardized data is the process of gathering data in a common format, making it easier to conduct an analysis and determine necessary next steps. Think of it this way, if you were looking at a chart comparing student test grades and they were all listed in various formats (0.75, 68%, 3/16, etc.), you would have a difficult time comparing these data points. However, if all the data is listed in percentages (80%, 67%, 92%, etc.), you could easily identify who is failing and needs more support in the classroom. This is the way using standardized data in the risk assessment process works. All data collected from assessments would be in the same format and you can understand which third parties are high risk and require prioritized mitigation.

CISOs who are still focused on point-in-time assessments are not getting it right. Organizations need to understand that risk assessment collection alone does not in fact equal reduced risk. While risk assessments are important, what you do with the risk assessment after it is complete is what really matters. Use it as a catalyst to create a larger, more contextual risk profile. Integrate threat intelligence, security ratings, machine learning, and other data sources and you’ll find yourself with all the data and insights you need and more to proactively reduce risk. You’ll be armed with the necessary information to mitigate risk and implement controls before the breach occurs, not the rushed patchwork after. A data-driven approach to third-party risk assessment will provide a more robust picture of risk and put an end to chasing assessments once and for all.

risk assessment

Security Risk Assessment

How to do an information security risk assessment for ISO27001

Tags: data breach, Risk Assessment, Third Party Risk


Sep 14 2022

Risk Management document templates

Risk Assessment and Risk Treatment Methodology

The purpose of this document is to define the methodology for assessment and treatment of information risks, and to define the acceptable level of risk.

The document is optimized for small and medium-sized organizations – we believe that overly complex and lengthy documents are just overkill for you.

There are 3 appendices related to this document. The appendices are not included in the price of this document and can be purchased separately

Risk Assessment Table

The purpose of this table is to list all information resources, vulnerabilities and threats, and assess the level of risk. The table includes catalogues of vulnerabilities and threats.

The document is optimized for small and medium-sized organizations – we believe that overly complex and lengthy documents are just overkill for you.

This document is an appendix. The main document is not included in the price of this document and can be purchased separately

Risk Treatment Table

The purpose of this table is to determine options for the treatment of risks and appropriate controls for unacceptable risks. This table includes a catalogue of options for treatment of risks as well as a catalogue of 114 controls prescribed by ISO 27001.

The document is optimized for small and medium-sized organizations – we believe that overly complex and lengthy documents are just overkill for you.

This document is an appendix. The main document is not included in the price of this document and can be purchased separately

Risk Assessment and Treatment Report

The purpose of this document is to give a detailed overview of the process and documents used during risk assessment and treatment.

The document is optimized for small and medium-sized organizations – we believe that overly complex and lengthy documents are just overkill for you.

This document is an appendix. The main document is not included in the price of this document and can be purchased separately

Statement of Applicability

The purpose of this document is to define which controls are appropriate to be implemented in the organization, what are the objectives of these controls, how they are implemented, as well as to approve residual risks and formally approve the implementation of the said controls.

The document is optimized for small and medium-sized organizations – we believe that overly complex and lengthy documents are just overkill for you.

Risk Treatment Plan

The purpose of this document is to determine precisely who is responsible for the implementation of controls, in which time frame, with what budget, etc.

The document is optimized for small and medium-sized organizations – we believe that overly complex and lengthy documents are just overkill for you.

Toolkit below contains all the documents above

Tags: Risk Assessment, Security Risk Assessment


Mar 31 2022

How to read a SOC 2 Report

how to read a SOC 2 report
https://fractionalciso.com/how-to-read-a-soc-2-report/

The following conversation about reviewing a SOC 2 report is one to avoid. 

Potential Customer: “Hi Vendor Co., do you have a SOC 2?”

Vendor Co. Sales Rep: “Yes!”

Potential Customer: “Great! We can’t wait to start using your service.” 

The output of a SOC 2 audit isn’t just a stamp of approval (or disapproval). Even companies that have amazing cybersecurity and compliance programs have a full SOC 2 report written about them by their auditor that details their cybersecurity program. SOC 2 reports facilitate vendor management by creating one deliverable that can be given to customers (and potential customers) to review and incorporate into their own vendor management programs.

Vendor security management is an important part of a company’s cybersecurity program. Most mature organizations’ process of vendor selection includes a vendor security review – a key part of which includes the review of a SOC 2 report.

SOC 2 reports can vary greatly in length but even the most basic SOC 2 report is dense with information that can be difficult to digest, especially if you aren’t used to reading them. This article will teach you how to read a SOC 2 report by providing a breakdown of the report’s content, with emphasis on how to pull out the important parts to look at from a vendor security review perspective.

Please note that you should not use this as a guide to hunt and peck your way through a SOC 2 report. It is important to read through the entire report to gain a full understanding of the system itself. However, this should help draw attention to the particular points of interest you should be looking out for when reading a report. 

Many different auditing firms perform SOC 2 audits, some reports may look a little different from the others but the overall content is generally the same.

How to read a SOC 2 report: the Cover Page

Even the cover page of a SOC 2 report has a lot of useful information. It will have the type of SOC 2 report, date(s) covered, the relevant trust services criteria (TSC) categories, and the auditing firm that conducted the audit. 

What Type of SOC 2 Report?

There are two types of SOC 2 reports that can be issued: A SOC 2 Type I and a SOC 2 Type II. The type of report will be denoted on the cover page. The key difference is the timeframe of the report:

A SOC 2 Type I is an attestation that the company complied with the SOC 2 criteria at a specific point in time. 

A SOC 2 Type II is an attestation that the company complied with the SOC 2 criteria over a period of time, most commonly a 6 or 12 month period. 

SOC 2 Type II reports are more valuable because they demonstrate a long-term commitment to a security program – and any issues over the time frame will be revealed. It’s possible for a company to get a SOC 2 Type I report then fail to adhere to their controls. 

Key takeaway: If a company only has a SOC 2 Type I, ask if and when they are working on achieving a SOC 2 Type II. If they say they are not getting a Type II, this is indicative of a lower commitment to security. 

Trust Services Criteria

Cybersecurity for Executives in the Age of Cloud 

Tags: SOC 2 report, SOC2


Mar 12 2022

Integrating Cybersecurity and Enterprise Risk Management (ERM)

Source: https://

/10.6028/NIST.IR.8286-draft2

ISO 31000: 2018 Enterprise Risk Management (CERM Academy Series on Enterprise Risk Management)

Tags: ERM, ISO 31000


Nov 04 2021

Supply Chain at Risk: Brokers Sell Access to Shipping, Logistics Companies

Category: Risk Assessment,Vendor AssessmentDISC @ 8:54 am

As if disruption to the global supply chain post-pandemic isn’t bad enough, cybercriminals are selling access, sometimes in the form of credentials, to shipping and logistics companies in underground markets.

That’s a worrisome, if not unexpected, development; a cybersecurity incident at a company that operates air, ground and maritime cargo transport on multiple continents and moves billions of dollars worth of goods could prove devastating to the global economy.

“At the moment, the global supply chain is extremely fragile. This makes the industry a top target from cybercriminals who will look to take advantage of today’s current situation,” said Joseph Carson, chief security scientist and advisory CISO at ThycoticCentrify. “The global chip shortage is resulting in major delays, with some stock unavailable or backlogged for more than six months, making it a prime attraction for cybercriminals to attempt to expose and monetize this via various scams. This includes redirecting shipments by changing logistic details or causing disruptions via ransomware.”

The actors, ranging from newcomers to prolific network access brokers, are selling credentials they obtained by leveraging known vulnerabilities in remote desktop protocol (RDP), VPN, Citrix and SonicWall and other remote access solutions, according to the Intel 471 researchers tracking them.

“No business or IT security team would willingly allow bad actors to exploit known vulnerabilities in remote access technologies, but this is exactly what is happening,” said Yaniv Bar-Dayan, CEO and co-founder of Vulcan Cyber, who believes much of the problem is a result of poor cybersecurity hygiene.

In one instance last August, an actor that has worked with groups deploying Conti ransomware said they had accessed “corporate networks belonging to a U.S.-based transportation management and trucking software supplier and a U.S.-based commodity transportation services company,” the researchers wrote in a blog post. “The actor gave the group access to an undisclosed botnet powered by malware that included a virtual network computing (VNC) function.” The group then used the botnet “to download and execute a Cobalt Strike beacon on infected machines, so group members in charge of breaching computer networks received access directly via a Cobalt Strike beacon session,” they said.

supply chain IoT edge trucking

Supply Chain Risk Management

Supply Chain Risk Management

Tags: Supply Chain at Risk


Oct 11 2021

An Adoption Guide for FAIR

Category: Risk Assessment,Security Risk AssessmentDISC @ 12:09 pm

Jack draws on years of experience introducing quantified risk analysis to organizations like yours, to write An Adoption Guide For FAIR. In this free eBook, he’ll show you how to:

Lay the foundation for a change in thinking about risk

Plan an adoption program that suits your organization’s style.

Identify stakeholders and key allies for socialization of FAIR

Select and achieve an initial objective, then integrate business-aligned, risk-based practices across your organization.

Tags: A FAIR Approach, Cost-Benefit Analysis, Factor Analysis, FAIR in a Nutshell, Pure Risk Reduction, Quantitative Tactical Analyses, What is FAIR?


Oct 01 2021

CISA releases Insider Risk Mitigation Self-Assessment Tool

Category: Risk Assessment,Security Risk AssessmentDISC @ 9:39 am

The US CISA has released a new tool that allows to assess the level of exposure of organizations to insider threats and devise their own defense plans against such risks.

The US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) has released the Insider Risk Mitigation Self-Assessment Tool, a new tool that allows organizations to assess their level of exposure to insider threats.

Insider threats pose a severe risk to organizations, the attacks are carried out by current or former employees, contractors, or others with inside knowledge, for this reason they are not easy to detect.

An attack from insiders could compromise sensitive information, cause economic losses, damages the reputation of the organization, theft of intellectual property, reduction of market share, and even physical harm to people. 

The tool elaborates the answers of the organizations to a survey about their implementations of a risk program management for insider threats.

“The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) released an Insider Risk Mitigation Self-Assessment Tool today, which assists public and private sector organizations in assessing their vulnerability to an insider threat.  By answering a series of questions, users receive feedback they can use to gauge their risk posture.  The tool will also help users further understand the nature of insider threats and take steps to create their own prevention and mitigation programs.” reads the announcement published by CISA.

Cybersecurity Awareness Month 2021 Toolkit: Key messaging, articles, social media, and more to promote Cybersecurity Awareness Month 2021

Held every October, Cybersecurity Awareness Month is a collaborative effort between government and industry to ensure every American has the resources they need to stay safe and secure online while increasing the resilience of the Nation against cyber threats.
The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) and the National Cyber Security Alliance (NCSA) co-lead Cybersecurity Awareness Month.

Cybersecurity Awareness Month 2021 Toolkit: Key messaging, articles, social media, and more to promote Cybersecurity Awareness Month 2021 by [Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency]

Tags: CISA, Cybersecurity Awareness Month 2021, Risk Mitigation Self-Assessment Tool


Jun 17 2021

Calculating Your Company’s Total Cybersecurity Risk Exposure

Category: Risk Assessment,Security Risk AssessmentDISC @ 12:20 pm
Skyscrapers - Total Cyber Risk of an Organization copy

In the first part of my blog post I focused on calculating the impact of a cybersecurity breach in relation to a company’s size and industry. In part two, I present an approach to better understand how often a company will experience security breaches.

The probability is usually the big unknown. Not particularly helpful is that our abilities to estimate a probability are inferior to our abilities to estimate damage. In addition, we must consider a range of limitations to our abilities to estimate. We don’t estimate well in magnitudes very small or large. Once in 1,000 years and once in 10,000 years is harder to differentiate than once per year and once in 10 years. Also, we tend to overestimate the probability of recently occurred incidents.

The great uncertainty drives risk practitioners to reduce their risk assessments to pure impact assessments (“Estimations of probability can only be wrong!”). However, we can use what is out there on data and make comparisons.

Source: Calculating Your Company’s Total Cybersecurity Risk Exposure

Tags: FAIR


May 25 2021

A leadership guide for mitigating security risks with low code platforms

Category: Risk Assessment,Security Risk AssessmentDISC @ 8:32 am

The lingering question of application code security follows, as stories of security breaches continue to pour, and remote teams across the world adopt low code for faster application delivery. Even as Gartner predicts that 65% of applications will be built using the low-code paradigm by 2024, it is important to understand the security implications that come with it and discuss how we can mitigate possible risks.

Most low code platforms enable non-technical users to build applications quickly and offer in-built security for various aspects of the application, such as APIs, data access, web front-ends, deployment, etc. Some go deeper with functionalities purpose-built for professional developers, with abilities to customize at a platform level. That said, no platform can claim to be the silver bullet when it comes to abstracting all security risks.

Business leaders should assess both internal and external risks that arise, and make sure there are certain guard rails enforced to secure low code-built applications. Let’s discuss some of these in detail.

The Enterprise Risk Management Program (ERMP) Guide provides program-level risk management guidance that directly supports your organization’s policies and standardizes the management of cybersecurity risk and also provides access to an editable Microsoft Word document template that can be utilized for baselining your organizations risk management practices. Unfortunately, most companies lack a coherent approach to managing risks across the enterprise:When you look at getting audit ready, your policies and standards only cover the “why?” and “what?” questions of an audit. This product addresses the “how” questions for how your company manages risk.

The ERMP provides clear, concise documentation that provides a “paint by numbers” approach to how your organization manages risk.The ERMP addresses fundamental needs when it comes to what is expected in cybersecurity risk management, how risk is defined, who can accept risk, how risk is calculated by defining potential impact and likelihood, necessary steps to reduce risk.Just as Human Resources publishes an “employee handbook” to let employees know what is expected for employees from an HR perspective, the ERMP does this from a cybersecurity risk management perspective.Regardless if your cybersecurity program aligns with NIST, ISO, or another framework, the Enterprise Risk Management Program (ERMP) is designed to address the strategic, operational and tactical components of IT security risk management for any organization.

Policies & standards are absolutely necessary to an organization, but they fail to describe HOW risk is actually managed. The ERMP provides this middle ground between high-level policies and the actual procedures of how risk is managed on a day-to-day basis by those individual contributors who execute risk-based controls.


May 03 2021

Risk-based vulnerability management has produced demonstrable results

Category: Risk Assessment,Security Risk AssessmentDISC @ 7:44 am

Risk-based vulnerability management

Risk-based vulnerability management doesn’t ask “How do we fix everything?” It merely asks, “What do we actually need to fix?” A series of research reports from the Cyentia Institute have answered that question in a number of ways, finding for example, that attackers are more likely to develop exploits for some vulnerabilities than others.

Research has shown that, on average, about 5 percent of vulnerabilities actually pose a serious security risk. Common triage strategies, like patching every vulnerability with a CVSS score above 7 were, in fact, no better than chance at reducing risk.

But now we can say that companies using RBVM programs are patching a higher percentage of their high-risk vulnerabilities. That means they are doing more, and there’s less wasted effort. (Which is especially good because patch management is resource constrained.)

The time it took companies to patch half of their high-risk vulnerabilities was 158 days in 2019. This year, it was 27 days.

And then there is another measure of success. Companies start vulnerability management programs with massive backlogs of vulnerabilities, and the number of vulnerabilities only grows each year. Last year, about two-thirds of companies using a risk-based system reduced their vulnerability debt or were at least treading water. This year, that number rose to 71 percent.

When a company discloses that their networks have been breached and that their data has been stolen or encrypted for ransom, there is a steady drumbeat of critics. The company, these critics contend, is somehow at fault. Its security team didn’t do EVERYTHING it could have to prevent the breach. The proof of this doesn’t lie in knowledge of what preventative steps the security team did, but in the fact that it got breached. Victim blaming was alive and well in cybersecurity.

Thankfully, this mindset is fading away. But when cybersecurity companies with risk-based approaches began entering the market, they faced headwinds from the security nihilism crowd who thought if you can’t fix everything, then “why bother?”

We can now say that, when it comes to vulnerability management – a complex, yet fundamental cybersecurity discipline – the risk-based approach has produced clear results. The proof is in the data.

Enterprises that use risk-based approaches to vulnerability management are getting faster and smarter at this foundational cybersecurity discipline. They are doing less work and seeing more impactful security improvements. It’s encouraging to see these year-over-year improvements and we believe this trend is likely to continue.

Risk Based Vulnerability Management 

Risk Based Vulnerability Management A Complete Guide - 2019 Edition by [Gerardus Blokdyk]

Tags: Risk-based vulnerability management


Mar 30 2021

Risky business: 3 timeless approaches to reduce security risk in 2021

Category: Risk AssessmentDISC @ 9:57 pm

Steps to reduce security risk in 2021

A summary of the tactical and strategic moves CISOs can make to reduce security risk:

  • Look to reduce your “haystack” of threat avenues through smart policy enforcement. Consider DNS as a vector – for both attack and detection
  • Ensure that your cloud adoption strategy is coupled with sound cloud security policy and design
  • Educate your leadership team. “We aren’t a target” is equivalent to sticking your head in the sand.

Are you doing enough? Do you understand your risks? What if the brightest aren’t always the best choice for your company?

The Smartest Person in the room
The Smartest Person in the Room: The Root Cause and New Solution for Cybersecurity by [Christian Espinosa]

Tags: reduce security risk


Mar 29 2021

Understanding Cyber Risk Quantification – A Four Minute Journey Into Your Future

Category: Risk Assessment,Security Risk AssessmentDISC @ 10:56 pm

Cyber Risk Quantification (CRQ) is now viewed as a core pillar of any effective Integrated Risk Management program. This short explainer video walks you through and gives you a glimpse into your future as a top tier cyber risk management organization. 

A FAIR Approach

Tags: A FAIR Approach, cyber risk quantification


Mar 17 2021

Why is financial cyber risk quantification important?

In its 10th annual Risk Barometer, Allianz found that cyber incidents ranked third in a list of the most important global business risks for the upcoming year, coming in second behind risks stemming from the pandemic itself. We can expect cyber incidents to increase in frequency and sophistication as cyber criminals continue to leverage the various security lapses that accompany remote workforces.

However, something that has changed recently is how business leaders and boards of directors are viewing cyber risk. While previously seen as an issue solely for security and technology leaders to manage, executives are now pressuring security departments to financially quantify cyber risks facing their organizations.

In fact, a recent survey of 100 senior security professionals found that 70% of respondents have received pressure to produce cyber risk quantification for their business. Further, half of the respondents reported they have a lack of confidence in their ability to communicate and report the financial impacts of cyber risks, with a quarter saying they do not have a cyber risk quantification technology deployed at their company.

Why are executives pressuring CISOs to start financially quantifying cyber risk for their business? This process allows CISOs to identify and rank risk scenarios that are most critical to their enterprise, based on factors such as which attacks would have the biggest financial impact, and how equipped the company is to defend itself against any given attack.

Automated risk quantification makes this process even easier, removing the guesswork out of these decisions and streamlining the process of getting to actionable information. The potential for human error and subjectivity are removed completely from the equation.

Previously, security leaders have relied on theoretical models of risk like the Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS). Even with this system, it can be difficult to prioritize the vulnerabilities that rank highest in terms of severity. This is even more challenging for leaders across the enterprise who may be unfamiliar with this system. Cyber risk quantification provides security leaders with a way to communicate the most pressing cyber threats facing a company that do not rely on a scoring system that is incomprehensible to anyone outside of the security department.

By assigning a dollar value to potential cyber incidents, business leaders have better visibility into the most pressing – and costly – threats facing the enterprise. With this information, the business and security teams can align their efforts and prioritize the largest risks, rather than dedicating resources to lower priority risks.

Teams can focus their efforts on ensuring the business has adequate controls and processes in place to defend against the costlier risks and make additional investments accordingly. It can also make it easier for leaders and boards to justify spending more time or money to proactively defend against certain risks.

For CISOs, cyber risk quantification also provides an easier way to communicate the value of their work to leadership. Security leaders can calculate the return on investment of their tools and teams in the context of risk reduction for the enterprise. This gives leaders better visibility into the risks facing their organizations in terms that are understandable and actionable. Conversely, cyber risk quantification can help to identify any issues with an organization’s existing cybersecurity program and measure improvement over time.

Overall, shifting to this type of risk-led approach for cybersecurity will result in data-driven and actionable insights that will allow leaders across all business departments to understand and act on the most critical cyber risks facing their enterprise.

We know that attacks are going to continue, whether they’re state-sponsored or cyber criminals, and it is critical for an enterprise to have a comprehensive view into your risk landscape. Now is the time for security leaders to adopt cyber risk quantification and more easily demonstrate how cybersecurity organizations are protecting their business operations from disruption and catastrophic harm.

Why is financial cyber risk quantification important?

Cyber Risk Quantification A Complete Guide

Tags: cyber risk quantification


Mar 16 2021

Risk management in the digital world: How different is it?

Category: Risk Assessment,Security Risk AssessmentDISC @ 3:33 pm

Prioritizing and communicating risk

Last year, the number of active phishing websites increased 350% from January to March alone. Now that employees are connecting to the office from their own remote networks and not through their office’s secure network, the chance of a security breach is higher than ever. While risk managers know this already, securing company data is essential to customer trust and longevity. To prioritize risk during remote work, risk managers need to involve executives and keep them updated and educated on potential problems and solutions. Prioritizing risk now will pay dividends in the long run.

Executive teams need to buy in — simply relegating all risk-related work to risk managers isn’t enough in the end. Investing time and money to form a risk-aware culture will better educate all employees on how to avoid common scams and prepare for larger-scale problems. Without prioritization and investment in risk, companies may not make it through the next major disruption and risk major security breaches.

A risk-aware culture can’t be created overnight. Risk managers and executives must first identify the risks and find out where the company stands, aligning risk culture with the existing company culture. Then, they can implement new risk management strategies that may require drastic changes, such as new software, revised policies and educational tutorials on risk. IT teams need to be on top of their game for virtual risks, educating employees and preparing them to ask the right questions. With phishing on the rise and data at a very vulnerable point, employees must be able to assess risk on their own.

Risk management in the digital world: How different is it?

Build a Security Culture

Tags: Risk management in the digital world


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