Every business inherently faces some degree of risk. It is, ironically, an essential component of success. Establishing a digital presence offers numerous opportunities but also introduces significant risks. While it would be ideal for best-of-breed cybersecurity tools to halt all cyberattacks, such an expectation is currently unrealistic. The objective then is to implement cyber risk management effectively using a three-part strategy that includes:

  • Risk Identification: Pinpoint potential cyber security vulnerabilities within your system and the threats that could exploit these weaknesses.

  • Risk Assessment: Determine the likelihood and potential impact of each identified risk, assessing its severity.

  • Risk Appetite Evaluation: Assess how each risk aligns with your predetermined level of acceptable risk.

Through this process of identification, assessment, and mitigation, businesses can safeguard business continuity, ensure compliance, and prevent costly data breaches and cyberattacks. Various cyber risk management methodologies are adopted by organizations based on their needs and resources. Below are some of the prevalent methods currently in practice.

Manual Approaches

Some organizations continue to use a manual approach to cyber risk management, relying on physical documentation, meetings, and human analysis without the aid of digital tools. Small businesses and organizations might resort to this approach as their apparent sole option, despite the rapidly increasing scale and complexity of the security landscape. Manual risk assessments involve tracking security incidents and strategizing face-to-face to tackle cybersecurity threats. Although this approach might have sufficed years ago, today’s era of rapidly evolving cyber threats exposes inherent weaknesses:

  • They offer limited scalability, struggling to keep pace with expanding digital footprints and the escalating threat landscape.

  • These methods are prone to human error during data entry or analysis, potentially leading to flawed assumptions and decisions.

  • Gathering, analyzing, and responding to threat information can be slow, causing delayed reactions.

  • Manual approaches can’t easily incorporate real-time updates, hindering timely threat awareness.

  • Sharing intelligence and analysis is challenging due to the nature of physical documentation.

Despite these limitations, tabletop exercises remain crucial for risk assessment and developing incident response plans. In these exercises, team members verbally navigate hypothetical cyber incidents, allowing organizations to evaluate their incident response strategies, uncover security gaps, and enhance teamwork. While constrained by human interpretation and potential response delays, tabletop exercises significantly contribute to preparedness, awareness, and human engagement in cybersecurity defenses.

Spreadsheets

What could be more ubiquitous in businesses than the classic spreadsheet. Spreadsheets can be an effective way to maintain an inventory of implemented controls, their status and effectiveness. They enable easy updates and reviews and can be adapted without too much effort. They can be used to log details of security incidents such as their type, affected assets, response actions and resolution status, allowing personnel to analyze them for patterns and improve response strategies. They also function well as compliance checklists, monitoring deadlines, compliance status, and responsibilities. While spreadsheets prove a definite upgrade from traditional documentation methods, they still carry similar drawbacks.

  • They still have scalability issues when it comes to large datasets or complex risk models.

  • While they are more sharable, there can be issues of version control in sharable environments.

  • The manual process of copying and pasting data from spreadsheets increases the chance of human error.

  • Digital spreadsheets open the door to issues of access controls and encryption.

  • They require spreadsheet skills for management and can be difficult to integrate with other systems.

  • They lack the ability to automatically update themselves which hinders timely risk assessment.

While not considered a spreadsheet in the classic sense, the MITRE ATT&CK framework is a structured compilation of cyber threat intelligence and is readily used by cybersecurity professionals the world over. Like a spreadsheet, it is organized into columns and rows, providing a comprehensive knowledge base of cyber adversary tactics and techniques that assists organizations in understanding and anticipating attacker behaviors to enhance the detection and defense strategies. Organizations also use it to benchmark security, develop threat models, and guide training.

Software or SaaS Solutions

In the era of digital transformation, there seems to be a software or cloud alternative to nearly any business process. Such is the case in cyber risk management. There are two ways to go here; installable software or SaaS that is delivered over the internet. Unlike the mentioned alternatives, there are licensing or purchasing costs that necessitate a significant ROI to offset the expense. Some of the advantages that you pay for are as follows:

  • SaaS solutions offer exceptional scalability, evolving alongside your business to meet the rapidly increasing cyber threat landscape. They are adept at handling vast data volumes and facilitating complex analyses.

  • They are specifically designed for the purpose of risk management and include embedded information such as asset categories, threat libraries and inherit risk calculations.

  • They are updated automatically in real-time to ensure that risk assessments are always based on the latest information.

  • They typically come with user-friendly interfaces and pre-designed templates, allowing operation with minimal learning curve or need for specialized expertise to operate.

  • They include integrated reporting and exporting options for integration with other systems.

  • They enable seamless collaboration across teams and departments, with changes and updates visible to all authorized users instantly.

  • While SaaS solutions are accessible from anywhere, they include robust security features including access controls and encryption.

As with any software solution, the risk of vendor lock-in or cloud lock-in exists, making it crucial to select your solution provider carefully if you decide to pursue this path.

If you want to learn about the process of risk management or want to learn how to upgrade your present methodologies of managing the risks that your business faces, we encourage you to contact HALOCK Security Labs and speak with one of our risk management specialists who can help guide you on determining the right risk management solution for your organization.