Libby Bevin

In the modern business world, companies need to invest heavily in digital technologies to keep their operations efficient and agile. That’s good unto itself, but such investments also expand the “attack surface” of the enterprise — the networks, devices, IT systems, and data that might be vulnerable to cybersecurity risks.

To defend against such risks, your organization must be able to understand threats and vulnerabilities and apply risk management to the entire attack surface. This is where continuous attack surface management (CASM) comes in.

In this article, we will address five key considerations for CISOs as they conduct enterprise-level continuous attack surface management.

Before understanding CASM, however, you must first understand its meaning and the attack vectors that exist within an organization.

What Is an Attack Surface?

The attack surface refers to all the exploitable vulnerabilities on an organization’s network, whether those vulnerabilities are on-premise software applications, hardware endpoints like computers and mobile devices, or within SaaS, cloud assets, or third-party networks.

Attack surfaces can be either internal or external. A threat actor could potentially exploit any attack surface to compromise the enterprise network, steal data, or perpetrate some other kind of cybercrime.

Four Types of Attack Surfaces

The attack surface examples mentioned above can be grouped into four categories.

1. Physical Attack Surfaces

   The physical cyberattack surface is composed of vulnerabilities on network-connected endpoints of internet-enabled devices. This surface is usually exploited by external intruders or rogue insiders, or via social engineering ploys and untrusted BYOD devices.

   A threat actor might then install malicious software, use privilege escalation to gain unauthorized access, inspect source code running on a device, or expose sensitive data on devices or databases.

2. Digital Attack Surfaces

   This attack surface encompasses everything in your digital ecosystem that lives outside the firewall and can be accessed through the Internet.

   Digital attack surfaces include all known assets, unknown assets (or “shadow IT”), and rogue assets such as malware and spoofed websites. Exploitable vulnerabilities in the digital attack surface include:

   • Open ports
   • Poor email security
   • Lack of DNSSEC
   • Leaked credentials
   • Leaked data
   • Susceptibility to domain hijacking, MitM attacks, XSS attacks, etc.

3. Social Engineering Attack Surfaces

   This attack surface is composed of all the people in your organization who are susceptible to social engineering attacks, like:

   • Media drops
   • Phishing
   • Tailgating
   • Scareware
   • Honey traps
   • Advance fee scams

4. Vendor Attack Surfaces

   Vendors, suppliers, and other third parties (especially those with access to the organization’s digital assets or data) also introduce significant cyber risk into the enterprise.

   Threat actors can exploit security issues in those vendor systems to attack the customer organizations through a “supply chain attack.” That’s why the organization’s cyberattack surface also includes vendor assets.

   Each attack surface has different kinds of vulnerabilities, which create different threats and generate different cybersecurity risks. So it’s vital to manage all your attack surfaces through comprehensive continuous attack surface management.

Five Key Considerations to Choose a Continuous Attack Surface Management Solution

In the cyber threat landscape, attack surface management (ASM) enables organizations to discover and monitor potential threat targets, reduce their attack surface, and identify and mitigate risks stemming from these targets. It also helps to prioritize remediation efforts.

CASM is a departure from older ASM approaches where security teams enumerated the attack surface in an ad-hoc or discrete fashion. Through CASM, security leaders can continuously assess the cyber attack surface, applying mitigation steps to vulnerabilities as they arise.

This lets the CISO reduce the size of the attack surface, decrease the risk of asset damage or data loss, and also improve the overall security posture.

To ensure that a CASM solution can help to meet these goals, organizations must consider a few key elements and capabilities.

1. Does my solution provide continuous monitoring?

   For any organization, the attack surface is highly dynamic, with assets being added or removed all the time. Moreover, the adoption of cloud-based services and open-source software increases cybersecurity vulnerabilities, and creates risks like misconfigurations and cyber attacks.

   The threat landscape also includes malicious assets (such as ransomware) deployed by cybercriminals that can’t always be detected through human or manual monitoring.

   This is why continuous monitoring of the entire attack surface is one of the most crucial capabilities in any CASM solution.

2. Can it discover shadow IT?

   According to Gartner, shadow IT assets “are driving increased risks of data breaches and financial liabilities.”

   To reduce your digital footprint, a CASM solution must provide full visibility into the shadow IT environment so security teams can discover such assets; incorporate those assets in policy-driven rules and prioritization workflows (or shut the assets down); and ultimately reduce risk impact.

3. Does it support risk-based prioritization?

   The cyberattack surface is composed of numerous assets. Not all are equally attractive to attackers.

   The CASM solution should be able to identify the most attractive, valuable, or risky assets, and provide automatic threat assessment. Equally important, it should support real-time, risk-based prioritization for more proactive, consistent security.

4. Does it integrate with other security solutions?

   Since CASM will be used by security operations, threat intelligence, and vulnerability management teams, the solution should be easy to integrate into daily workflows.

   Also, the cyberthreat landscape is constantly evolving, so the CASM solution should not work in isolation. It should provide bi-directional APIs that enable integration with other security solutions including asset management, GRC, and SIEM.

5. Is black-box reconnaissance included?

   A robust CASM solution must automatically discover any external assets visible to threat actors, even if the solution isn’t provided with specific asset information like IP address ranges.

Reduce Cyber Risks With ZenGRC

To track and manage persistent threats properly, you need a solution that can keep up with your evolving CASM and risk management program.

The ZenGRC Platform provides a “single source of truth” repository that reveals information security risk across the business, whether from internal assets or from third-party vendors.

It also helps streamline incident management, so you can quickly and identify and respond to any security incidents and minimize loss events.

Furthermore, ZenGRC employs universal control mapping across any number of cybersecurity and compliance frameworks. This lets you create a single control and workflow to satisfy multiple needs.

Worry-free CASM is the ‘Zen’ way. To learn more about ZenGRC, contact us today for a free demo.

Data privacy and protection are essential in modern business. The amount of personal data stored in various databases is enormous, and poses numerous threats to the privacy of individuals. This is particularly true in the healthcare industry.

To guard against privacy failures in that field, privacy laws such as the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) and the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act of 2009 (HITECH Act), were enacted by U.S. lawmakers. These laws enforce strict privacy rules and impose rigorous cybersecurity standards for healthcare providers, insurance companies, clearinghouses, and health plans that have access to sensitive health data.

Given the rapid evolution in health IT services, the laws also undergo changes from time to time to assure that the standards of cybersecurity and data protection keep pace with ever-changing cybersecurity threats.

One such revision to the HIPAA Privacy Rules is happening now. Below, you will find the most recent updates and additions.

The Proposed HIPAA Modifications

In January 2021 the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) issued a proposed rule to modify the HIPAA Privacy Rules to facilitate “the transition to value-based health care.” The main changes are:

Changes to the NPP

In the proposed new rule, covered entities (that is, businesses subject to HIPAA) will not be required to obtain signature or acknowledgment of the Notices of Privacy Practices (NPP), allowing individuals to choose whether to discuss the NPP with a person appointed by the covered entity.

In addition, the new regulation will require that the Notices of Privacy Practices include in their heading information the ways available for individuals to:

• Access recorded information,
• Fill out a HIPAA complaint form,
• Contact their designated representative.

Coordinated Care and Care Management Support

The proposed modification will also allow Protected Health Information (PHI) disclosure to entities of health-related coordination services, like community-based service providers, organizations, or social service agencies, to expand support for individuals.

In addition, the amendment substantially lowers the barriers for individuals to authorize and consent to the use of their patient data to non-HIPAA entities.

Broadened Disclosures of PHI

The amendment will allow covered entities to provide patient records in the care and treatment of individuals for substance abuse disorders, severe mental illness, and other medical emergencies related to the patient’s mental health.

The basis for sharing, however, must be a “serious and reasonable threat” to the individual. Covered entities must provide PHI if there is a “good faith belief” that it will be in the individual’s best interest, contrary to previous security standards for patient privacy.

More Rights for Individuals to Access Their PHI

The proposed rule will allow individuals greater access to their protected health information. People would be able to take notes, photos, or videos, along with other “personal means” to view and record their PHI in person.

This amendment will also reduce the deadline for covered entities to provide individuals access to their PHI to no more than 15 days (and a single extension for the same amount).

This service will be provided free of charge, and the fees for redirecting PHI to third parties will be modified, along with the obligation to publish its fee schedules on their websites.

Added Definitions

The proposed rule also added two new definitions:

Electronic Health Record

Based on the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act of 2009 (HITECH Act), the HHS re-defined the Electronic Health Records (EHR) as “an electronic record of health-related information on an individual that is created, gathered, managed, and consulted by authorized health care clinicians and staff.”

Personal Health Application

Additionally, the Department of Health and Human Services defined personal health applications as:

an electronic application used by an individual to access health information about that individual in electronic form, which can be drawn from multiple sources, provided that such information is managed, shared, and controlled by or primarily for the individual, and not by or primarily for a covered entity or another party such as the application developer.

Concerns Over Healthcare Privacy

Overall, the modification of the HIPAA Privacy Rule was well received by its key stakeholders. It also, however, raised several concerns that can be summed up as follows:

Provides Non-HIPAA Entities Access to Sensitive Information

The Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC), in its response to the proposed rule, expressed concern about the weakening of security measures for third-party non-HIPAA entities’ to access patient data without adequate HIPAA safeguards and protections.

Loosens Safeguards

The American Medical Association (AMA) expressed great concern over reducing formalities for sharing information with third parties by decision or consent of individuals. The absence of a written request requirement for sharing information with third parties could lead to wrongful forwarding and unauthorized access to PHI.

The proposed modification of the HIPAA Security Rule raises another series of vulnerabilities regarding the PHI gathered by individuals. The reduction in security measures may generate severe data risks breaches of covered entities’ information.

Added Regulation Complexity

Most healthcare organizations and insurers that have submitted feedback on the proposed amendment agreed on one primary concern: the substantial increase in the complexity of the new requirements with other federal or state law enforcement.

The California Hospital Association (CHA), the American Hospital Association (AHA), and the AAMC highlighted the increased difficulty in implementing the new HIPAA policies in line with the Interoperability Rules, the CARES Act, and other federal laws, plus other data protection state laws.

Stay Current on the Latest HIPAA Regulations With ZenGRC

Managing the ever-changing data protection regulations, especially within the healthcare sector, can be nearly impossible. Dealing with daily risks and keeping up with regulatory changes can get unmanageable quickly when done manually.

This is why Reciprocity has designed ZenGRC, a governance, compliance, and risk management tool designed to facilitate the monitoring of various internal and external regulatory policies for companies.

ZenGRC can map a single control to multiple data protection regulations, so you only have to do the work once. Additionally, ZenGRC updates in real-time to changing laws, so you always know where you stand.

Powered by multiple national and international frameworks, ZenGRC will provide you with a variety of essential tools for any data protection, risk management, or compliance office with the support of experts.

To learn more, book a free demo today.

In 2020, organizations around the world had to contend with:

• The exposure of 36 billion records
• A 630 percent increase in cloud-based cyber attacks
• Remote workers causing cybersecurity breaches in 20 percent of companies
• Two-thirds of all of data breaches resulting from credential theft or human error
• Average lost business costs of $1.52 million

To stay ahead of threat actors and all the disruption they bring (as outlined above), organizations and their security teams must first understand their vulnerability to cyber threats and develop a risk management plan to mitigate that exposure.

They must also comprehend the risks facing them. That is, they need to understand the potential for cyberattacks to cause the loss, exposure, damage, or destruction of assets or data. This is where cyber threat intelligence helps.

What Is Cyber Threat Intelligence (CTI)?

Cyber threat intelligence is actionable threat information that has been contextualized and analyzed to identify a threat actor’s attack behaviors, motives, and targets.

It can be tactical intelligence, focused on simple indicators of compromise (IOCs). It can also be operational intelligence, focused on adversaries and their various tactics, methodologies, and procedures. Or it could also be strategic intelligence that helps organizations to understand the risks of cyber threats.

Taken altogether, these three elements are collectively known as tradecraft.

A cyber risk intelligence team generates and uses this intelligence to help with threat identification, incident response, security decision making, and moving from reactive to proactive security. The team plays a critical role in helping to protect organizations from threats before those threats harm business operations.

The Benefits of a Cyber Risk Intelligence Team

Annual cybercrime costs are set to hit $6 trillion by 2021, and $10.5 trillion by 2025. Clearly, organizations everywhere — including yours — are increasingly vulnerable to cyber-attacks and data breaches. Given that environment, businesses need to ask:

• What kind of cyber attacks are you most vulnerable to?
• What is the likelihood or probability of a data breach?
• Where is the attack most likely to come from?
• Who is the most dangerous adversary, and what tactics are they most likely to employ?

A threat intelligence team finds answers to those questions. These professionals can help organizations strengthen their security postures by:

• Finding unknown risks and threats, including emergent threats, in a timely manner;
• Revealing adversaries and their motives, tactics, and decision-making process;
• Helping security operations teams and CISOs to prioritize risks, and to take better security-strengthening decisions;
• Helping management to make wiser security investments.

A cyber threat intelligence team can benefit any business, regardless of the company’s size or industry. These specialists can also help the rest of the security team to:

• Optimize threat prevention and detection capabilities;
• Implement risk-based incident management and prioritization of high-risks;
• Accelerate incident investigations;
• Uncover and track threat actors;
• Understand security risks and strengthen security defenses.

Four Core Functions of a Successful Cyber Risk Intelligence Team

To deliver all the benefits listed above, a strong cyber risk incident response team must fulfill four core functions.

1. Preventative Threat Intelligence

   The team should monitor, generate, analyze, and triage risk management alerts before those alerts become incidents.

   The team also assists with vulnerability prioritization and supports the incident response function, so that the most critical threat use cases (malware, phishing, or ransomware, for example) can be addressed immediately.

2. Incident Response

   This function is focused on the dissemination of intelligence about threat groups and risks, and coordinating mitigation efforts to address threats, and minimize their damaging impact.

3. Strategic Support

   The team members in your security operations center should support leadership with strategic decision-making.

   They also help leaders understand the business-level effect of a potential threat (such as revenue losses), identify the resources necessary to address it, and plan security projects and investments.

4. External Threat Intelligence Services Providers

   Even organizations with a dedicated cyber risk assessment team can benefit from an external threat intelligence service provider.

   Such a vendor can provide access to threat data and IOCs, and strategically support the leadership. The vendor can also assist with preventative threat intelligence and incident response.

Who Should Be On My Cyber Risk Intelligence Team?

A strong cyber risk intelligence team consists of various security professionals, each playing a specific role in information sharing, and gathering, analyzing, disseminating, and actioning threat intelligence.

Cyber Risk Intelligence Leader

For the intelligence team to have a tangible effect on the organization’s security posture, a strong team leader is vital.

This person should have excellent communication and strategizing skills, as well as knowledge about cybersecurity and experience in cyber intelligence.

He or she must be able to capture the organization’s intelligence requirements (tactical, operational, and strategic) and to set up an intelligence program to inform the organization’s security decisions and actions.

Cyber Risk Intelligence Team Members

The team leader should leverage the right talent and tools to provide security operations teams with timely, accurate, and contextual threat and risk intelligence.

Here, “talent” refers to a mix of professionals from various backgrounds, including cybersecurity, traditional intelligence, data science, and even law enforcement.

A diverse team of cyber risk intelligence analysts working together can expand the organization’s understanding of its risk profile. More importantly, they empower the enterprise to make the right decisions to strengthen its security.

Avoid Cyber Risks with ZenGRC

ZenGRC can enhance your awareness of potential cyber threats encountered on endpoints, and better track and manage cyber risks.

With ZenGRC, you can leverage a single platform to manage compliance and to uncover information security risks throughout the enterprise.

With easy access to cybersecurity templates and complete views of control environments, ZenGRC provides everything your organization needs to analyze and address the most relevant threats — before they cause damage and chaos.

Furthermore, ZenGRC’s automation capabilities help to streamline your risk management workflows so your cyber risk intelligence team members can focus on the most critical activities instead of tedious, repetitive tasks.

To learn more about ZenGRC, book a free demo today.

2020 was not a good year for cybersecurity. In the first half that year alone, ransomware (a special kind of malware) attacks increased by 715 percent from the prior year’s levels.

A global survey found that 57 percent of organizations experienced a phishing attack, up from 55 percent in 2019; while the average total cost of a data breach climbed to $3.86 million.

To mitigate the risks of such cyberattacks, enterprises need to do more. One tactic proven to help: implement network segmentation practices.

What are “network segments,” exactly, and how can a segmented network improve cybersecurity? Today’s post answers those questions. We’ll also unpack five network segmentation best practices to help you boost the security of your enterprise network.

What Is Network Segmentation?

Network segmentation divides an enterprise network into smaller segments or sub-networks, with limited inter-connectivity among them.

Segmenting networks gives administrators better control over network traffic as that traffic flows from one segment to the next, and improves your ability to prevent unauthorized users from accessing the organization’s devices, applications, and data.

And if a data breach does happen — which, let’s not delude ourselves, can always happen — network segmentation assures that the breach only affects that targeted segment. The other network segments remain protected from further damage.

How Can Network Segmentation Improve Security?

In the enterprise network, firewalls and other protective mechanisms cannot always block or detect threats within the organization’s network. Segmentation, however, can prevent more cyberattacks, reduce damage, and improve overall network performance.

One reason is that segmenting improves access control, so that only authorized users with specific privileges can access each segment.

This means that even if an attacker does gain access to one segment, he or she won’t be able to access the rest of the network; the attacker can only move around within whatever segment the stolen access credentials allow. This helps to minimize damage and prevents the network from failing in its entirety.

By implementing network segmentation best practices, you also get better visibility into and control over network traffic, so you can minimize any threats to your systems — both external and internal.

Remember, securing the computer network from internal threats is now just as important as securing it from external threats. This is because the earlier “trust assumption” — where insiders were assumed to be trustworthy and not a threat — has now eroded.

Perhaps the insiders have ill intent; perhaps they’re unwitting dupes in a criminal scheme; perhaps attackers have stolen their credentials to impersonate the insider. Regardless, the insider can be a source of data breaches just as much as an outsider.

This is why adopting Zero Trust Architecture (ZTA) is essential, and network segmentation is one part of the ZTA approach. You can create a micro perimeter around your most critical assets to protect them from unauthorized users and bad actors.

Other Benefits of Network Segmentation

Segmented architecture also helps to simplify firewall security policies. By using a consolidated policy for subnet access control (as well as threat detection and mitigation) you can further reduce your attack surface.

Micro-segmentation (implemented through software-defined networking) can also allow you to implement more granular security policies to meet your organization’s specific cyber-defense needs.

One more benefit: segmenting reduces the costs of regulatory compliance by limiting the number of systems that might fall within scope of a compliance audit.

How Can You Segment a Network?

Network segmentation can be implemented as either logical or physical segmentation. Physical segmentation involves segmenting a larger network into smaller segments using physical or virtual firewalls.

Logical segmentation creates subnets, either with Virtual Local Area Networks (VLANs) or network addressing schemes. It requires no wiring or the physical movement of components, making it more flexible and automation-friendly.

Network segmentation can be done through firewall segmentation at specific network boundaries. The firewall provides visibility into network traffic and can be set to allow/block various kinds of traffic, applications, and users.

If your organization is aiming for PCI-DSS compliance, consider PCI DSS network segmentation to isolate and protect credit card data from other computing processes.

Five Network Segmentation Best Practices

1. Understand who accesses what.

   Proper network segmentation starts by first knowing who can access the network, as well as who should access which parts of the network — and that might not always be the same group of people.

   By defining access needs clearly, you can assure that no issues might arise later that could require a costly and time-consuming re-architecture of the segmentation process.

2. Avoid under or over-segmentation.

   One of the most important network segmentation best practices: create the right number of segments to balance security with complexity.

   Too many segments will make it harder to control and manage the network. Too few will weaken the network’s security profile.

3. Restrict and control third-party access.

   Bad actors can attack your enterprise network or data center through your third-party vendors or suppliers.

   The risk of third-party data breaches is not only on the rise; it can also cost organizations about $370,000 more than if a third party was not involved. That’s why restricting third-party access to your critical systems and sensitive data is so important.

   Creating separate portals to serve each vendor will isolate and limit an attack even if it happens.

4. Consolidate similar network resources.

   Combining similar network resources into individual databases is another network segmentation best practice to follow. With such a tactic you can quickly implement security policies, and assure that business-critical data remains isolated and protected.

5. Perform network audits.

   Regular and comprehensive network audits, with risk assessments and penetration testing, are critical to staying ahead of bad actors trying to exploit your enterprise network in many different ways.

   By auditing the network, you can find exploitable gaps and take action to close them, before a bad actor has a chance to slip in and cause damage. Audits will also reveal if your previous network segmentation plan is outdated or irrelevant.

How ZenGRC Can Supplement Network Segmentation

The modern cyber threat landscape is teeming with bad actors looking for ways to attack your enterprise network. To stay ahead of them, you must take action today.

Protect your network, vulnerable devices, endpoints, and data with a robust network segmentation strategy. And get it right by adhering to the network segmentation best practices covered in this article.

You can strengthen your organization’s security posture, but this requires taking action — sooner rather than later.

Implementing a robust cybersecurity strategy can be a daunting task, particularly if your organization is responsible for adhering to cybersecurity compliance frameworks.

ZenGRC can supply your compliance and cybersecurity teams with a centralized, integrated dashboard that identifies risk across your entire organization.

ZenGRC simplifies risk management and provides complete views of your control environments, easy access to your documentation at audit time, and continuous monitoring of your security stance over time.

To learn more about ZenGRC and how it can support your compliance and network security efforts, contact us now for a free demo.

In today’s fast-paced world, organizations (and individuals) benefit from relying on third parties to manage their business processes. From cost reduction to speeding up production times, cloud-based services offer commercial advantages in an increasingly competitive market.

Microsoft defines cloud services as “the delivery of computing services including servers, storage, databases, networking, software, analytics, and intelligence over the Internet (“the cloud”) to offer faster innovation, flexible resources, and economies of scale.”

Those advantages, however, are not risk-free for organizations. Third-party relationships can generate all manner of risks: reputational, regulatory, cybersecurity, and financial, to name a few. These risks can be especially prominent in cloud services.

For example, Capital One suffered a data breach of 109 million financial records in 2019, thanks to an attacker exploiting the cloud-based storage provider Capital One used. That example is only one of many. Hence the critical role that third-party risk management plays in governing those risks among the cloud services your organization uses.

We explain why this risk exists and how you can better manage it in the sections below.

Common Third-Party Risks of Cloud Storage

Take these common risks into account when adding cloud-based services to your business processes.

Compliance Risks

By using cloud storage services, we outsource the information security management of the servers used for data storage to third-party vendors. This reduces the internal burden of cybersecurity, but generates its own set of potential risks. Or more precisely, cybersecurity burdens shift from your internal operations to your third-party relationships — but the burdens themselves do not go away.

Your company’s data security compliance obligations should be part of the minimum requirements when establishing third-party relationships. Incorporate those security requirements into your onboarding review of every cloud-based service you use, compliance failures on the vendors’ part can easily translate into compliance liability for your business.

Business Continuity Risks

Cloud storage services also bring operational risks. They become part of a company’s infrastructure and, consequently, its overall operation. So if the vendor fails, your operations degrade.

This means companies must evaluate the business continuity risk that a vendor might pose to your own operations, including possible disruptions to your supply chain. Evaluate the mechanisms that vendors have in place to prevent the disruption of their services; as well as the mechanisms you have in place to prevent the disruption of your services, should a critical vendor fail anyway.

Mobile Device Risks

Given the growth of Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) policies at corporate organizations, CISOs must also consider how to square the complexity of employees’ mobile devices with the cloud-based services you use. You might have employees accessing corporate data, on their own device, through a third-party vendor’s service.

This means CISOs will need to manage transactions that move among all three of those layers, with reinforced security protocols between both ends (user and data).

Best Practices for Managing Third-Party Risks

To combat these and other vendor management risks, it’s best to develop a vendor risk management (VRM) or third-party risk management (TPRM) program to manage the entire vendor lifecycle.

The following are some VRM best practices that could be useful to protect yourself from risk and increase your cloud security.

Third-Party Risk Assessment

Assessing third-party risk is critical. Before starting a relationship with third-party vendors, prepare a complete risk profile.

These profiles allow senior management and company stakeholders to understand the strategic risks associated with the vendor relationship, and what business processes or data might be at risk by using that vendor.

To that end, use vendor risk questionnaires to ask each vendor about its security policies, practices, past failures, and the like. Your risk assessment should also consider the data that your business would entrust to the vendor, your own compliance obligations to keep that data safe, and whether the vendor itself might then outsource its work to a sub-contractor — creating “fourth-party risk” for you.

Constant TPRM Program Evaluation

To work with third parties safely and effectively, it’s necessary to create a third-party risk management program that considers all the risks of the vendor relationship. That program should establish continuous monitoring procedures and remediation plans.

Moreover, that program needs to evolve over time. It should test internal controls regularly to assess their effectiveness, reassess risks among your third parties and among your own operations as they change over time, and take advantage of new tools to achieve effective vendor risk management and a strong security posture.

Technology Tools Adoption

Dealing with third-party risk today is nearly impossible without the help of proper technology tools. Automated monitoring, dashboard presentation of results, prompt alerting and reporting, the tracking of high-risk behaviors — all are possible with the right software. Use those tools to keep your third-party management program sharp.

Managing Third-Party Risks Is Easy With ZenGRC

Conducting third-party due diligence can be a time-consuming and daunting task, particularly for larger organizations with numerous vendors. This is all the more true for companies still employing legacy tools such as spreadsheets to manage their vendor workflows. Such manual systems can also lead to increased security risk due to human error, not to mention poor productivity.

With ZenGRC’s vendor risk management software, compliance officers gain better transparency into and control over vendor risk. And with its baked-in automation functionality, much of your governance, risk, and compliance duties are monitored for you.

ZenGRC streamlines the vendor management lifecycle and eliminates the headaches of disjointed processes, bottlenecks, and re-work associated with inaccurate manual processes.

Its continuous monitoring functionality assures that your team is always informed of your TPRM compliance requirements, and maps to numerous industry standards so you only have to do something once.

Ready for a free consultation? Reach out today.