ZenGRC Team

5 Steps To Developing A Corporate Compliance Program

ZenGRC Team · December 19, 2022 ·

Compliance rules regulation policy law. Business technology concept.

Corporate compliance programs are to a company’s business operations; you are required by law to comply with various regulations (read: not optional), and a compliance program lets a company navigate those duties with more efficiency and discipline. The larger your organization grows, the more regulations and compliance burdens you encounter.
Although corporate compliance can feel overwhelming at first, corporate compliance programs offer a sound foundation for business strategy and risk management. Hence, understanding and following the five typical steps to building a compliance program are so important.

What Is the Purpose of a Corporate Compliance Program?

Corporate compliance programs help a company meet its obligations to obey various laws, regulations, and other rules so that the company can stay in business. Without a compliance program, a company is at far greater risk of legal violations that might bring monetary penalties and other painful punishments from law enforcement.
More broadly, a corporate compliance program reinforces a company’s commitment to mitigating fraud and misconduct at a sophisticated level, aligning those efforts with the company’s strategic, operational, and financial goals.

Importance of a Corporate Compliance Program

A robust corporate compliance program demonstrates that your business is aware of the laws and regulations that apply to it and that the company takes reasonable measures to comply with those rules and laws.
When your business does commit misconduct or suffers some unfortunate incident (say, a cybersecurity breach), regulators will examine your compliance program to see whether the business was making a good-faith effort to avoid those events. If your compliance program is strong, prosecutors and regulators will give you a more favorable resolution. If it isn’t, they won’t. That can lead to painful financial costs, the possible loss of licenses to operate or to bid on government contracts, civil lawsuits, and other unpleasant circumstances.
Corporate compliance may also aid in the preservation of your brand’s reputation. Thanks to social media, word of a business breaching a code of conduct or misbehaving can spread quickly. Strong compliance programs can help to protect your company from such complaints and attacks.

What Is a Compliance Officer?

The compliance officer runs your compliance program. This individual reviews laws and standards and then develops plans to meet those requirements.
Traditionally, the compliance officer (or compliance manager) must retain independence from individuals within the organization, to assure objectivity and impartiality when investigating allegations of wrongdoing.
The independence requirement means that your organization should carefully determine whether to have a chief compliance officer report to the board of directors, the CEO, the general counsel, or some other senior executive.

Steps for Developing a Corporate Compliance Program

Compliance programs are not one-size-fits-all. Some basic principles and practices do exist, but you’ll need to tailor your plan to your company’s unique needs.
Here are some steps that can help you streamline this process:

Step 1: Win the Support of Executive Leadership

Effective compliance requires the support of senior management. If the board and the C-suite don’t much care about compliance programs, at best you’ll have a “paper program” that looks good but accomplishes little. At worst, you’ll have no program at all.
Leadership sets the overall tone for compliance. The more the C-suite talks about the importance of compliance – and the more it supports the program with budget, staffing, resources, and other efforts – the more the rest of the enterprise will see that, and follow suit.

Step 2: Assess Risk Accurately and Appropriately

Organizations must address internal and external risks that could compromise their compliance stance. Assessing your organization’s risks means incorporating not only legal risks for noncompliance but also your vendor and transaction risks.
For example, a luxury resort may include YouTube videos as a marketing strategy. While this seems innocuous, if those videos use guest images without the individual’s permission, especially if the guests are children, that could violate numerous regulatory requirements and bring enforcement actions against the resort.
Risks come from many directions and affect many areas of an organization’s business. Try to find and understand them all.

Step 3: Establish Standards and Controls

Your compliance program must develop standards and controls that respond to the risks you find. In our resort example above, that might mean adopting a policy requiring employees to get guests’ consent before posting their images online.
Or if you’re a healthcare provider offering tele-medicine and accepting credit card payments, you need to implement controls protecting both electronic personal health information (ePHI) and cardholder information. While measures such as endpoint encryption and firewalls may overlap, additional controls, such as data segregation, may also impact the compliance stance.

Step 4: Train Employees

Employee training is crucial for compliance programs. (Indeed, many regulations expressly require that employees be trained on your policies and controls.) Moreover, training requirements are another reflection of the “tone at the top” that makes a compliance program successful.

Step 5: Test and Monitor Your Efforts

Compliance risks evolve over time, as regulations change and your own business updates its operations. So compliance programs must also test the effectiveness of their controls, monitor the program’s performance, and introduce improvements as needed. Monitoring often incorporates audit requirements (either external or internal) as part of the regulatory or industry standard.

Elements of a Strong Compliance Program

The United States Sentencing Guidelines specifies seven critical components of a successful compliance program.

Create and implement written policies, procedures, and standards of conduct. Clear written guidelines and policies that outline compliance requirements promote consistency throughout your organization.
Establish program oversight. Determine who will be in charge of overseeing, monitoring, and enforcing the compliance program and acting as your company’s “watchdog” with queries and concerns.
Provide staff education and training. Employees at all levels must grasp your compliance program’s expectations and requirements to comply. Implement a training program that clearly conveys your company’s program criteria, including an annual refresher session that reminds staff of your code of conduct and includes revisions.
Establish two-way communication at all levels. Set the expectation that workers would communicate proactively and in a timely way, whether it is to ask compliance questions, report difficulties, or address ethical concerns. Include a method for workers to report compliance problems and fraudulent or illegal activities anonymously and without fear of reprisal.
Set up a mechanism for monitoring and auditing. You must assess the efficacy of your company’s compliance program and identify potential hazards. To accomplish this, create a system of internal and external monitoring, including formal audits.
Maintain steady discipline. Create a strategy for enforcing standards of behavior in a timely way, defining suitable disciplinary consequences for workers who fail to meet program criteria.
Take appropriate action. When vulnerabilities or violations are discovered through monitoring and audits, make a prompt and consistent effort to address the problem.

Make Compliance a Breeze with ZenGRC

With ZenGRC, many essential steps to building an effective compliance program become more efficient.
With role-based authorizations, individuals within your organization can access the compliance information they need to assure that your compliance controls, policies, and procedures are working as intended. In addition, providing employees access to policies and procedures helps them adhere to regulatory requirements.
With ZenGRC pre-existing content, your organization can add additional regulations or standards to its compliance program. This content provides the option to incorporate a gap analysis beforehand to show management the extra work needed to obtain full compliance.
Finally, to help the board of directors and audit committee review risks and the associated compliance controls, ZenGRC offers easy-to-digest graphic reports that give at-a-glance insight into your compliance program.
Schedule a demo today for more information about how ZenGRC can help your organization create an effective corporate compliance program.

Protecting Your Corporate Website as an Enterprise Risk Management Strategy

ZenGRC Team · September 30, 2022 ·

Organizations often view their websites as simple business cards that give customers information. Protecting your corporate website as an enterprise risk management strategy can keep your data, customers, sensitive information, and reputation safe.

Whether an organization is large or small, the client-facing website offers hackers easily exploitable vulnerabilities for ransomware or malware infections.

Why Would a Hacker Want to Exploit a Corporate Website?

Now, you’re probably thinking, “I just post free knitting patterns, so why would a hacker care about my website?” This is an excellent example of the value hackers find in innocuous corporate websites. A few months ago, a knitting blogger warned her audience about malware infestations from free pattern downloads.

Of all the websites in the world, one would think free knitting patterns would be the most harmless. But unfortunately, these small business websites are at risk precisely because they are least likely to seem dangerous.

Malicious attackers understand these websites may be operated by unsophisticated website owners. They also recognize that they are less likely to trigger warnings from Google, Bing, Norton, McAfee, and others who look for website irregularities to determine attacks.

What Are Corporate Website Vulnerabilities?

Security vulnerabilities are weaknesses that allow an attacker to exploit your system’s safety. A vulnerability may exist when the system has a flaw that the attacker is capable of accessing and manipulating.

Most corporate websites have similar vulnerabilities. Understanding what they are is the first step in protecting yourself against them.

SQL Injections

Though non-tech people may imagine syringes filled with squirrels, SQL injections are not nearly as interesting. However, SQL injections are the most exploited web application security vulnerability.
Attackers use SQL injections to access or corrupt databases using exposed application elements, such as form fields or URLs. Upon accessing the databases, the attackers can copy, change, or interact with the most information in the back-end database.

Cross-Site Scripting (XSS)

This vulnerability takes a client-facing script like JavaScript and hides code in the application’s output.
Imagine a field of wildflowers. One flower pollinates a neighboring flower thanks to a spring breeze. With the promise of delicious nectar, this flower entices a bee to carry pollen and spread allergies beyond the wildflower field. Likewise, as people visit the site, they leave cookies that are sent to the malicious attacker.

Broken Authentication and Session Management

Any login requirement is a potential vulnerability. Whether the purpose is to allow commenting on the website or create a persona that helps organize data, your organization is at risk.
Sometimes, malicious attacks keep logins from timing out, placing a user at risk when on a shared computer. Sometimes these are related to what is called “session fixation.” These attacks take the data-hidden in the URL or as a cookie-that allows the web server to recognize a visitor and then creates new sessions from that data.
These are the Little Red Riding Hood hacks. They dress up as grandma to hide that they’re the Big Bad Wolf trying to eat your reputation.

Insecure Direct Object References

These are not grammatical phrases with low self-esteem. Instead, a direct object reference occurs when a URL or request links to other files, keys, or URLs.

For example, think about a user wanting to download or export a PDF file. The file’s name may be part of the URL from the website. If an attacker changes the URL’s information, the user downloads an invalid and potentially malicious file. This file creates an access point to the user’s data.

Security Misconfiguration

The default installation, permissions, and security settings can be exploited by a hacker when organizations don’t personalize applications, web servers, database servers, or platforms.

To prevent this kind of vulnerability, it’s imperative to change default passwords, disable unused accounts and unnecessary functionality, and apply software patches promptly on a regular basis.

Cross-Site Request Forgery (XSRF)

In the information security world, this can also be referred to as Sea Surf or Session Riding, though XSRFs should be called Loki since they’re the tricksters of vulnerability exploits. To hack your users, the malicious actor studies the code in your applications and looks for ways to redirect traffic or manipulate user actions without their consent.

After identifying a weakness in your code, such as images or other web page elements that are loaded from a non-secure location, the attackers move to exploit it. For example, they may insert code into an image request that secretly passes information to another site (especially user credentials) or executes another action such as a purchase with the login credentials a user entered onto the legitimate website.

For users who have their login information saved on a computer, this link will not only automatically log them into the site but also initiate an action. In some cases, this can be a transfer of money or other personal data.

What Are the Ways to Improve Website Security?

It’s dangerous to make assumptions about website security. Instead, take the required actions to increase the security of your website. Ensure that data is hidden from curious eyes.

No technique can ensure that your website will always be “hacker-free.” However, the susceptibility of your website will decrease by implementing preventative measures.

Business owners are required to protect client information online. Make every effort to avoid danger and take all essential safeguards. It is always preferable to be safe than sorry when it comes to web security.

Here we explain thoroughly how to improve your website security in five steps.

Update All Plugins and Software

Many websites are hacked daily due to obsolete software and security issues. In addition, sites are being scanned for attacks by bots and potential hackers. The health and security of your website depend on updates. Your site is not secure if it’s software or apps are out-of-date.

Consider all requests for software and plugin updates carefully. Updates frequently include security improvements and vulnerability fixes. Check your website for updates or install a plugin that notifies users of upgrades. Another method to guarantee website security is the ability of some systems to do automated upgrades on a regular basis.

Your site will be less secure the longer you wait. Therefore, prioritize upgrading your website and all of its elements.

Opt for a Secure Web Host

Consider the domain name of your webpage like a street address. Consider the web host as the internet “real estate” on which your website is located. Investigate potential web hosting providers to select the best one for you, just as you would research a piece of land to build a house.

Many providers offer server security tools that better secure the information on your uploaded websites. When selecting a host, there are a few things to consider.

SFTP, or Secure File Transfer Protocol, is offered by the web host?
Is it deactivated for FTP Use by an Unknown User?
Does it use a rootkit scanner?
Does it provide services for file backups?
How effectively do they stay updated with security updates?

Make sure your web hosting company has all you require to keep your website safe.

Make a Website Backup

Having an effective backup solution is one of the most significant ways to keep your website secure. You ought to possess more than one. Each is essential to restoring your website following a serious security event.

Remember that your backups are just as susceptible to assaults as your website, so avoid storing them on the same server. Decide whether to save a copy of your website on a hard drive or personal computer. Choose a location off site to protect your data from viruses, hacking attempts, and hardware malfunctions.

Get a Web Application Firewall

Apply for a web application firewall (WAF). It stands between the data connection and your website server. To defend your website, the goal is to read every bit of data that flows through it.

Most WAFs available today are cloud-based and plug-and-play services. Acting as a gateway for all incoming traffic, the cloud service prevents hacking attempts. Additionally, it filters out unwanted traffic like spammers and harmful bots.

Tighten Network Security

Engage security experts with the know how to perform security audits after you believe your website is secure. They will uncover additional vulnerabilities and opportunities to improve controls. For example, employees that access your website on workplace laptops could unintentionally encounter malicious code and open up a dangerous gateway.

Consider implementing the following at your company to stop them from granting access to the server hosting your website:

Make computer logins disappear after a brief inactive time
Make sure your system alerts users to change passwords every three months
Ensure a device is malware-scanned each time it is connected to the network

Why Protecting Your Corporate Website as an Enterprise Risk Management Strategy Matters?

True enterprise risk management (ERM) requires a holistic approach, starting with what drives performance. Organizations not only need to focus on their risk management and internal controls to protect their internal data systems, but also need to consider protecting visitors to their website.

Corporate websites add value to your organization. Any piece of your company that is client-facing impacts your brand. If hackers compromise your website or you experience a data breach, you risk significant reputational damage.

Building a successful brand requires building customer trust. Customers today are notoriously cynical about corporate America, but equally loyal when they believe in a brand. People follow your website and social media presence to learn about you. If you have a corporate blog, you will have traffic from both regular followers and one-time visitors.

A single exploit of your corporate website can harm clients and potential customers. This leads to a loss of revenue. In the digital age, a malicious attack perpetrated through a corporate website can cause terrible online reviews and devastate the company.

Organizations must realize the value of protecting their corporate websites as an enterprise risk management strategy.

How Do You Incorporate Protecting Your Corporate Website as an Enterprise Risk Management Strategy?

Once your organization has labeled its corporate website as a performance driver, you need to determine your tolerance for the risk it poses and implement steps to mitigate risks to an acceptable level in your risk management plan. Many organizations underestimate how a security breach on their corporate website could damage company performance.

According to Google, the number of hacked websites increased 32% in 2016 and will probably continue to grow. The increased potential for exploitation should make corporate website security a critical risk within your ERM strategy, which should lower your risk tolerance and motivate increased security measures.

Monitoring Software

Once you have identified the risk, you must consider ways to mitigate it. Protecting your corporate website involves ensuring up-to-date software. Monitoring software updates on a regular basis is the maximum protection against cyberattacks, so this should be your first step.

Parameterized Queries

Parameterized queries, for example, create a placeholder in your query. Think about an Excel spreadsheet. If you’re putting a formula in the cells, that’s an abstraction. You get an honest answer when other people fill in the data that allows the procedure to be computed.

A parameterized query works similarly. This means that if a malicious attacker wants to gain entry to your database, they need to be able to find the correct parameter as opposed to just gaining information about a single person in the organization.

Content Security Policy

Creating a content security policy (CSP) means configuring a web page’s values so that you can control the resources your user agent is allowed to load. It requires code in the HTTP header of a web page.

For example, one standard CSP is having your server specify that data transfers come only from HTTPS websites, adding a level of security to your software and, thus, your hardware.

Password Management

In the information security world, you can never hear the phrase “strong password” enough. Particularly when looking at client-facing aspects of your business, you want to ensure that the passwords keep out intruders. For example, if your corporate blog content providers don’t have strong passwords, that creates a potential security breach into your corporate website.

HTTP

The clarion call for HTTPS seems ubiquitous these days. However, while users are encouraged to seek out only HTTPS versions of websites, they protect your business side of the house just as much.

In short, HTTPS and the Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) Certificate create a secret handshake between your website and the user to ensure no one else can gain entry during that person’s session. In addition, codes are encrypted before they are exchanged, keeping everyone safer from hackers than a traditional HTTP.

How Automation Can Track Your Corporate Website Protection and Strengthen Your ERM Strategy

Once you have reviewed and mitigated your risks, you need to monitor your controls continuously. Unfortunately, the static corporate website seems less concerned with the variety and complexity of information security requirements. As a result, your corporate blog or website offers a weakness that malicious attackers can exploit.

An automated GRC platform allows you to control and track the needed reviews. ZenGRC, for example, offers the ability to set priorities, assign tasks, and track whether the designated person has completed the job. By delegating these responsibilities and quickly reviewing their completion status, you engage more fully in your monitoring.

Automation provides visibility that allows you to drill deeper into the compliance well while detecting whether you’ve hit water or oil. With ZenGRC, you avoid the time and effort it takes to fumble through items across spreadsheets. Instead, you benefit from a single source of truth with visibility to the big picture while managing the minor details more efficiently.

Manage Risk with ZenGRC

It might seem complicated to keep track of everything at once and constantly, particularly regarding cyber danger. However, threat actors continuously adapt their strategies and technology, and you must do the same if you want to maintain control over your systems, data, and brand.

The many responsibilities involved in controlling cybersecurity risk may, however, be handled with the aid of robust governance, risk management methodologies, and compliance solutions.

By probing your systems and identifying cybersecurity and compliance flaws, ZenGRC assists you in identifying risks. Workflows, assessment templates, dashboards, and the document repository enable streamlined processes so everyone is on the same page.

With ZenGRC, managing cyber risk almost takes care of itself, freeing you up to focus on more urgent issues like growing your company and your bottom line. Schedule a demo right away to receive a free consultation.

Why Buying SaaS GRC Software Is a Smart Investment

ZenGRC Team · September 30, 2022 ·

As organizations and businesses around the world and across industries migrate their IT to the cloud, C-suites are faced with a new dilemma for governance, risk management and compliance (GRC) solutions: cloud versus on-premise software.

Cloud computing and cloud-based software give organizations more agility – a factor many decision-makers consider as they plan the future of their enterprise. More than 50 percent of organizations moved their workloads to the cloud in 2020, according to the Flexera Cloud Computing Trends: 2021 State of the Cloud Report.

Cloud-based solutions also make sense for GRC – especially in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. Organizations need to achieve their business goals reliably (governance), while addressing uncertainty (risk management), and acting with integrity (compliance). But they also need visibility into the various landscapes that make up the modern business environment.

Whether or not an organization implements a GRC solution to help, managing all the various factors and influences that affect modern business processes inevitably requires a GRC strategy. But developing, implementing and maintaining a robust corporate governance, risk management and regulatory compliance program requires resources. That’s time and money that might be better spent elsewhere.

That’s where the right GRC solution can make the difference. In this article we’ll explore GRC software-as-a-service (SaaS) solutions, and whether this is a smart investment for your organization.

Definition of Terms

Before we examine the capabilities of GRC SaaS solutions, we first need to provide some definitions. To provide some clarity, we’ve defined these terms below using language that can be understood at all levels of expertise.

SaaS

Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) is a method of delivering software and applications over the internet as a service. As opposed to installing and maintaining software on corporate premises, organizations can simply access it over the internet.

Also known as web-based software, hosted software, or on-demand software, SaaS liberates organizations from the often complex tasks associated with software and hardware management, as the SaaS provider manages access to the application, including security, availability, and performance. All organizations need to get started is an internet connection.

GRC Software Solutions

First coined by the Open Compliance and Ethics Group (OCEG), the acronym GRC stands for governance, risk management, and compliance. According to OCEG, GRC is “the integrated collection of capabilities that enable an organization to reliably achieve objectives, address uncertainty and act with integrity.”

In this definition of GRC, governance sets the business context by defining business objectives; risk management assesses and monitors risk to business objectives through identification, analysis, and treatment; and compliance requirements provide boundaries to frame risk management.

OCEG also notes that although organizations have been governed, and risk and compliance have long been managed in the business environment, many businesses have not approached these activities in a mature way, “nor have these efforts supported each other to enhance the reliability of achieving organizational objectives.”

How Does a GRC Platform Work?

As organizations struggle to meet rapidly changing demands, expectations and requirements in the modern business environment, GRC software solutions are designed to lessen the burden. Integrating GRC capabilities, however, doesn’t mean that organizations should do away with decentralized management altogether.

Unfortunately, there is such a thing as “GRC done wrong,” and research suggests that disjointed GRC activities can cause a lot of problems for organizations: the creation of information silos, higher costs, lack of visibility into risks, inability to address third party risks, difficulties measuring risk-adjusted performance, and increases in the number of negative surprises.

Managing risk, compliance, and audit processes is complex and resource intensive. Without a centralized platform, audit cycles are longer, visibility into overall risk posture is lacking, and reporting is inefficient. Many organizations delay GRC initiatives because they fear it will be too costly or challenging – but with the right GRC solution, these fears can be put to rest.

Done correctly, effective GRC solutions allow organizations to adapt to the security landscape more easily with a management process that assures the right people get the right information at the right times; the right strategic objectives are established; and the right actions and controls are put in place to address uncertainty and act with integrity.

What Is the Scope of GRC Software?

Your choice of GRC tool is only one component of your overall GRC strategy. it’s also essential to implement a cultural change that embeds the principles of GRC throughout your organization. That means establishing a strong set of best practices based on industry standards to guide stakeholders as they familiarize themselves with the platform itself.

Ideally, a GRC solution should equip your security and compliance teams with a single, integrated experience that reveals information security risks across your enterprise.

With complete views of control environments, easy access to metrics necessary for program evaluation and continual compliance monitoring to address critical tasks at any time, the right GRC solution should leverage a single platform for all your compliance, internal audit, risk, third-party risk, overall governance, and policy management applications.

GRC software can also make it easier to streamline communication across cross-functional teams, as well as generating easy-to-read risk reports to the necessary stakeholders. However, these are just a few of the benefits that come along with GRC software. In the next section, we’ll introduce a number of other benefits organizations typically see when they implement GRC SaaS platforms before we examine a few of them in more detail.

Why Do We Need GRC Software?

When GRC is done right, there are a number of benefits for the organizations using those solutions. Some of these benefits include reduced costs, reduced duplication of activities and redundancy, reduced impact on operations, greater information quality, greater ability to gather information quickly and efficiently, greater remediation capabilities, and greater ability to repeat processes in a consistent manner.

Ultimately, all of these factors can contribute to an organization’s overall business continuity-something highly important in the face of so many disruptions.

Let’s take a closer look at some of these benefits before we suggest a GRC solution that meets all of these capabilities, and more.

Lower Cost of Entry

Because SaaS is considered an operational expense as opposed to a capital expense, organizations only pay for what they need without needing to acquire any hardware to host their applications. As opposed to on-premise solutions that require appropriate internal resources for installation and maintenance, SaaS providers perform these activities for you. This exchange can greatly reduce the cost of entry, especially for small-to-medium businesses just getting started on the path to GRC.

Reduced Time to Benefit

Organizations implementing a GRC strategy without a GRC solution to help can tell you just how long it can take for this approach to work. Meanwhile, GRC solutions can start working in a matter of hours.

Ready-to-use applications not only reduce the time it takes to implement GRC processes, but it also reduces the time it takes to benefit from such an investment. Many SaaS companies even offer free trials to help eliminate the learning curve and demonstrate its capabilities to stakeholders, aiding in more confident decisions about investments.

Predictable Costs

Unlike traditional GRC solutions, SaaS GRC is built on a pay-as-you-go model. This enables organizations to better predict the subscription and administrative expenses they are likely to incur-a benefit that is music to c-suite ears.

As organizations plan to scale their GRC programs to meet growing operations, SaaS GRC solutions can facilitate more accurate budgeting for cloud solutions, unlike traditional internal IT security solutions which could develop unexpected issues, making it more difficult to predict their cost.

Provider Responsible for Upgrades, Uptime, and Security

In every organization, IT professionals are inevitably worried about the security of their IT infrastructure and the information it holds. With a SaaS GRC solution, the service provider is responsible for maintaining and upgrading their solutions so that they are at their most reliable, and most secure.

GRC vendors are also responsible for meeting service agreements, which means that at any time you feel like your GRC vendor isn’t holding up their end of the bargain, you can simply cancel your contract. Save your IT teams’ time and save your organization’s money, and save your peace of mind knowing that your GRC provider will take care of everything for you.

Convenience

Because SaaS GRC solutions are hosted on the cloud, they can be accessed anywhere there’s an internet connection. For organizations grappling with remote or hybrid work environments, this flexibility is paramount-stakeholders can access their GRC platform from almost any device, at any time.

This level of convenience is unmatched by traditional, on-premise solutions, and is especially useful to ensure that your GRC software is working in real-time. Additionally, access to easy-to-read dashboards makes status updates and reporting easier than ever.

Manage Risk and Compliance with ZenGRC

Clearly, choosing a SaaS GRC solution is the right way to go-but with so many options available, how can organizations confidently choose the right platform for their business? Fortunately, there’s one SaaS solution that rises above the rest, giving organizations a worry-free path toward fully integrated GRC.

ZenGRC is a governance, risk management, and compliance platform that equips organizations with a single, integrated experience that reveals information security risks across your business.

Zen’s single source of truth document repository enables organizations to build a unified and trusted foundation for all of its compliance needs, while insights and analytics helps identify gaps in programs, regulations, and frameworks to gauge an organization’s security posture against peers and industry standards.

With ZenGRC, your organization can rely on automation for the most critical tasks, and it even offers data-sharing and notifications with a configurable set of process workflows that support cross-team collaboration. Share, connect and collect critical compliance and risk data across the organization, all within a single system.

ZenGRC can also help your organization improve its vendor relationships and remove the burden put on internal teams with simple and automated third-party risk management. ZenGRC integrates all of your existing business applications for automatic, continuous-and worry-free-risk and compliance management.

Join some of the world’s leading companies and schedule a demo to get started on your journey toward better governance, risk management, and compliance – the ZenGRC way.

ISO 27001 Requirements Checklist: Steps and Tips for Implementation

ZenGRC Team · September 30, 2022 ·

The ISO 27001 standard for management of information systems helps organizations of any size to manage the security of data assets such as employee information, financial information, intellectual property, and third-party information.
ISO 27001 is primarily known for providing requirements for an information security management system (ISMS), and is part of a much larger set of information security standards.

An ISMS is a standards-based approach to managing sensitive information to assure that the information stays secure. The core of an ISMS is rooted in the people, processes, and technology through a governed risk management program.

Many organizations follow ISO 27001 standards, while others seek the additional step of obtaining an ISO 27001 certification. Be aware, however, that certification is evaluated and granted by an independent third party that conducts the certification audit. Once the ISO 27001 audit is complete, the auditor gives the organization a Statement of Applicability (SOA) summarizing its position on all security controls.

Why Is an ISO 27001 Checklist Essential?

Information security policies and controls are the backbone of a successful information security program.

Risk assessments, risk treatment plans, and management reviews are all critical components needed to verify the effectiveness of an information security management system. Security controls make up the actionable steps in a program and are what an internal audit checklist follows.

A complete list of controls for ISO 27001 is in Annex A of the standard, but not all of those controls are information technology-related. The best way to think of Annex A is as a catalog of security controls, and once a risk assessment has been conducted, the organization has a guide on where to focus.

These are the control sets of Annex A:

Annex A.5 – Information Security Policies
Annex A.6 – Organization of Information Security
Annex A.7 – Human Resource Security
Annex A.8 – Asset Management
Annex A.9 – Access Control
Annex A.10 – Cryptography
Annex A.11 – Physical and Environmental Security
Annex A.12 – Operations Security
Annex A.13 – Communications Security
Annex A.14 – System Acquisition, Development, and Maintenance
Annex A.15 – Supplier Relationships
Annex A.16 – Information Security Incident Management
Annex A.17 – Information Security Aspects of Business Continuity Management
Annex A.18 – Compliance

What Are the Controls in ISO 27001?

The ISO 27001 controls list, divided into 14 sections, may be found in Annex A (domains). Not all of them are IT-related. Following is an overview of the controls within each section.

Information Security Policies, Annex A.5 (2 controls)

This section defines the general direction of the organization’s information security processes based on the organization’s needs.

Organization of Information Security, Annex A.6 (7 controls)

The distribution of duties for particular tasks is covered in this appendix. It consists of two sections, with Annex A.6.1 verifying that the organization has built a structure capable of effectively implementing and maintaining information security standards.

Mobile devices and remote working are covered in Annex A.6.2. It is intended to assure that everyone who works from home or while on the go, whether part- or full-time, adheres to the proper procedures.

Security of Human Resources, Annex A.7 (6 controls)

Making sure that workers and contractors are aware of their duties is the goal of Annex A.7.

There are three parts to it. Annex A.7.1 discusses what obligations exist for people before employment. Job-related tasks are covered in Annex A.7.2. Annex A.7.3 covers requirements to protect the organization when employees are no longer in that job due to leaving the organization or changing roles.

Asset Management, Annex A.8 (10 controls)

This section addresses how organizations define acceptable information protection obligations and identify information assets.

There are three portions. First, organizations’ identification of information assets that fall under the purview of the ISMS is the chief topic of Annex A.8.1.

Information classification is covered in Annex A.8.2. By following this procedure, information assets are assured to receive the proper level of protection.
In Annex A.8.3, media handling must prevent sensitive data’s unauthorized disclosure, alteration, removal, or destruction.

Control of Access, Annex A.9 (14 controls)

Assuring that employees can only read information pertinent to their jobs is the goal of Annex A.9. It is separated into four components covering user access to data, systems, and applications. User responsibilities, such as password management, are also covered.

Cryptography, A.10 Annex (2 controls)

This section covers the handling of sensitive information and data encryption. Its two controls assure businesses employ cryptography to secure the availability, confidentiality, and integrity of data.

Physical and Environmental Security, Annex A.11 (15 controls)

The security of physical assets and property is covered in this section. With 15 controls divided into two sections, it is the longest annex in the Standard.
Preventing unauthorized physical access to the organization’s facilities or the sensitive data kept there is the goal of Annex A.11.1.

Annex A.11.2 focuses on equipment. It is intended to prevent the theft, loss, or damage of the physical files, software, hardware, and other containers that make up an organization’s information assets.

Security for Operations, Annex A.12 (14 controls)

This annex has seven components. Its controls assure that information processing facilities are safe.

Operational duties and procedures are covered in Annex A.12.1, assuring that the correct operations are carried out.Malware is addressed in Annex A.12.2, to assure that the organization has the required defenses to reduce the risk of infection.
Organizations’ obligations for backing up systems to prevent data loss are covered in Annex A.12.3.

The intention of Annex A.12.4 is to guarantee that organizations maintain logs and records of proof when security incidents take place.
The requirements for protecting the integrity of operational software are covered in Annex A.12.5.

Technical vulnerability management is covered in Annex A.12.6, intended to prevent unauthorized parties from taking advantage of flaws in the system.
Information systems and audit issues are addressed in Annex A.12.7 providing guidelines to minimize the impact that audit operations have on operational systems.

Communications Security, Annex A.13 (7 controls)

This section addresses how businesses safeguard data on networks. It has two parts. Network security management is addressed in Annex A.13.1 to maintain the confidentiality, integrity, and accessibility of information in such networks. Annex A.13.2 addresses information security while in transit, whether moving to another company division, a third party, a client, or any other interested party.

Acquisition, Development, and Maintenance of Systems, Annex A.14 (13 controls)

The goal of Annex A.14 is to maintain information security as a critical component of the organization’s procedures over its entire lifespan. The security needs for internal systems and those that offer services via public networks are covered by its 13 controls.

Supplier Relationships, Annex A.15 (5 controls)

This appendix addresses the contracts that businesses have with other parties.
It is split into two halves. First is the protection of an organization’s assets accessible to or affected by suppliers, covered in Annex A.15.1. Second, Annex A.15.2 assures that all parties uphold the agreed-upon standards for information security and service delivery.

Information Security Incident Management, Annex A.16 (7 controls)

This section covers how to handle and report security issues. The procedure entails defining which personnel should be responsible for particular activities to provide a uniform and efficient approach for responding to security incidents.

Business Continuity Management Related to Information Security, Annex A.17 (4 controls)

The goal of Annex A.17 is to create a successful system to handle business disruptions. It has two parts.

First, information security continuity is covered in Annex A.17.1, which also outlines the steps to make sure that information security continuity is integrated into the organization’s business continuity management system. Redundancies are examined in Annex A.17.2 to assure the availability of information processing facilities throughout a disruption.

Compliance, Annex A.18 (8 controls)

Organizations can locate pertinent legislation and regulations thanks to this appendix. This aids in comprehending their contractual and legal obligations, reducing the possibility of non-compliance and the associated fines.

How to Create an ISO 27001 Controls Checklist

A typical ISO 27001 checklist has several key components.

The organization must assess the environment and take an inventory of hardware and software.
Select a team to develop the implementation plan.
Define and develop the ISMS plan.
Establish a security baseline.
Establish a risk management program and identify a risk treatment plan.
Implement a risk treatment plan.
Monitor, conduct management reviews and take corrective action by leveraging the ISMS.

Once the ISO 27001 checklist has been established and carried out by the organization, then ISO certification may be considered.

Are you looking for ISO certification or simply strengthening your security program? An ISO 27001 checklist adequately laid out will help accomplish both. In addition, the checklist needs to consider security controls that can be measured. For instance, the checklist should proceed through the issues in Annex A 5-18 to understand whether the organization has the proper security controls.

Create Your Own ISO 27001 Checklist

There are many ways to create your own ISO 27001 checklist. The critical point is that the checklist should be designed to test and prove that security controls in your organization are compliant.

Consult with your internal and external audit teams for a checklist template to use with ISO compliance or for basic security control validation. ISO 27001 standards are an essential baseline for a successful information security program.

Also remember that an ISO 27001 checklist is not a one-time exercise. Proper compliance is a cycle of continuous improvement; checklists require ongoing monitoring to stay ahead of cybercriminals.

How Do You Perform a Gap Analysis?

Companies can compare their present information security systems to the criteria of the ISO 27001 standard to determine where gaps might exist, and what should be done to update their business processes to achieve ISO 27001 certification.

Theoretically an organization can do a gap analysis at any time, but timing is essential to optimize its impact. So perform gap studies frequently, and especially before a time of strategic planning or whenever a department or endeavor is performing poorly.

The ISO 27001 risk assessment and ISO 27001 gap analysis are the major topics of the ISO 27001 implementation and review procedure. Most of the information required for an organization to adhere to the ISO 27001 standard is provided through these procedures.

That said, because the procedures for ISO 27001 gap analysis and risk assessment are similar, companies can become confused between the two – which jeopardizes your ISO 27001 compliance.

An ISO 27001 risk assessment helps you to determine which cybersecurity controls are necessary at your business. That risk assessment, however, does not reveal if the firm actually has implemented specific cybersecurity measures. The ISO 27001 gap analysis does that.

Businesses frequently use consulting firms to complete the ISO 27001 gap analysis. An ISO 27001 gap analysis specialist can evaluate your current information security processes, procedures, and documentation during this process.

The specialist will then evaluate those items, considering the criteria of the ISO 27001 standard. The specialist will report on non-conformities and opportunities to improve the organization’s current information security practices, to resolve gaps in compliance and reduce the risk of data breaches.

Which Metrics Should You Use to Measure the Efficacy of an ISMS?

Assuring that processes are efficient makes sense in information security management – but how can you tell if your information security program is successful and moving in the right direction?

Organizations that follow the ISO 27001 standard must guarantee that their ISMS is continually improved. The standard’s Chapter 9 focuses primarily on measures to monitor performance. It states that you must specify the processes and controls you plan to measure, the frequency of reviews, and the targets.

Performance metrics show whether you are meeting your information security objectives and can serve as early warning systems, alerting you to new risks. Examples include: how much spam your spam filter catches, how many viruses you detect, how many attacks your intrusion detection system or firewall can detect, uptime/downtime, and other quantitative measurements.

Additional measures include the percentage of security tasks completed in the allotted time, the number of staff members who have acknowledged the latest security policy update, or the average amount of time taken to correct policy or compliance requirements violations.

When you compare metrics from month to month, you will see if your controls are adequate or if new risks are emerging. If targets are not being met, review your risk assessment, gap analysis, and operating procedures. Top management should review metrics regularly and ensure resources are properly allocated to address concerns.

Streamline ISO 27001 Compliance with ZenGRC

Complying with regulatory and security frameworks is labor intensive, especially if you are tracking requirements on an old-fashioned spreadsheet. To expedite the process and ease your ISO worries, you can streamline and automate your ISO 27001 compliance and certification tasks.

ZenGRC is a compliance and audit management solution. It provides prescriptive guidance with a pre-loaded library of regulatory and information security frameworks. Automated workflows ensure nothing falls through the cracks and always leave a clear audit trail.

Insightful reporting and dashboards help you spot concerns and easily share progress with stakeholders. ZenGRC is a single source of truth with advanced functionality to help you perform all your compliance activities with ease.
Schedule a demo to see how you can always be audit-ready with ZenGRC.

Tips for Managing Third-Party Risk in Health Care

ZenGRC Team · September 29, 2022 ·

Data breaches against healthcare organizations affected more than 1 million people in 2020. The average total data breach cost in the same year was far higher in the healthcare industry ($7.13 million) than any other sector. In 2021 the average cost rose to $9.41 million.

As one can see, the healthcare industry is one of the most attractive targets for cyber attackers and data thieves. Why? Because this sector possesses the “crown jewels” of personal data that these adversaries want. Healthcare data is rich with information, including patients’ personally identifiable information (PII), protected health information (PHI), and financial information.

Cybercriminals obtain healthcare data to perpetrate fraud, steal identities, or launch ransomware attacks. A single healthcare record can be sold for $250 on the black market, while the next most valuable record is a payment card for only $5.40.

Such valuable data creates immense cybersecurity risks in healthcare. Third parties generate, manage, or hold this data, resulting in even more severe threats to healthcare organizations and their information security. This is why third-party risk management and healthcare data security are critical.

What is Healthcare Vendor Risk Management?

Third-party suppliers increasingly provide mission-critical operational and support services in the healthcare industry’s supply chain. That said, healthcare companies are finding it challenging to stay ahead of vendor breaches due to the volume of cyber attacks on supply chain suppliers. Current methods to manage vendor questionnaire assessments cannot scale to keep up with the growing vendor risk exposures.

As part of the digitization of healthcare, the most crucial IT vendors now host these systems in the cloud. The issue with this, though, is that we now rely on these outside suppliers to carry out essential operations and provide patient care.

The pain is felt by the healthcare organization when a vendor has an outage because of ransomware or another cybersecurity intrusion. And that suffering now extends far beyond the potential for Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) regulatory non-compliance brought on by lost or stolen data; instead, the breaches affect healthcare organizations’ capacity to function and pose a risk to patient safety.

The Need for Third-party Risk Management in Healthcare

In the healthcare industry, attackers often leverage third-party vulnerabilities to access sensitive information, while defenders try to keep these bad actors out. One such attempt by defenders is the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), a law formulated to help protect patient data and secure healthcare organizations.

Despite HIPAA regulations, cybersecurity attacks and data breaches targeting healthcare remain a severe and increasing threat. In addition, third parties, who play a vital role in healthcare supply chains, further exacerbate this threat.

HIPAA calls these third parties “business associates,” and the healthcare organizations are referred to as “covered entities.” Depending on the nature of their business, third parties may have access to PII, PHI, and other valuable data.
Unfortunately, they often fail to implement strong security controls to protect this data, making them, and by extension, healthcare organizations and patients, vulnerable to compromise.

To make matters worse, a 2020 survey found that 54% of healthcare vendors experienced a data breach of PHI, but only 36% notified providers because they were afraid to lose their business. This lack of accountability and transparency should worry healthcare providers and those whose PHI they collect or manage.

With a robust third-party risk management system, healthcare organizations can detect, identify, and remediate cybersecurity threats within their vendor tiering ecosystem, protect valuable patient information, and optimize vendor relationships.

Notes on Vendor Access et. al

There are several areas that healthcare organizations should prioritize and address as part of their third-party risk management program:

Vendor access to medical devices
Medical devices running legacy operating systems and code versions
Third-party scripts and plugins on websites
Access to PII

Vendor Access to Medical Devices

Healthcare organizations spend a great deal of money on medical devices, and most carry hefty support contracts. However, such agreements say little (or nothing) about what kind of access the third-party vendors will have or how the device will be supported or protected.

Several device manufacturers provide remote support but don’t always follow good cybersecurity hygiene. Therefore, the healthcare organization must enforce strong security policies and ensure that the vendor only has the access required to service the device and nothing more. In other words, the organization is responsible for protecting its data, not the vendor.

But not all healthcare providers take this responsibility seriously. A common mistake is granting device manufacturers VPN access with open elevated privileges. In addition to weak control policies, this increases the risk of cyberattacks. Adopting a zero-trust approach to network and data access by third parties is the best way to mitigate such risks.

Medical devices Running Legacy Operating Systems and Outdated codes.

Many data breaches occur because of unpatched operating systems, applications, and software code. For example, a June 2020 survey discovered that 65% of companies running old software had suffered data breaches.

In healthcare, outdated software is a severe problem. Since medical devices usually have long lifecycles, they have been in service for years with outdated software or operating systems. As a result, security vulnerabilities remain in old, unpatched software, which increases the risk of cyber threats.

That’s why it’s critical to update and patch software in medical devices regularly. In addition, wherever software vendors no longer support a particular application, healthcare organizations must transition to different, more secure, and up-to-date software.

Third-Party Scripts and Plugins on Websites

Third-party scripts and website plugins are outside the control of a healthcare provider’s IT ecosystem. In 2019, over 93% of web pages included at least one third-party resource, so it’s virtually impossible to avoid them. However, such resources also pose a significant cyber risk, leaving the organization open to attack.

It’s essential to conduct regular vulnerability scans to identify exploitable vulnerabilities or malicious code in scripts and websites. In addition, monitor the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) requests made by the company website to ensure that it doesn’t connect with malicious domains. Site content audits and script monitoring also help manage and minimize the risks of third-party scripts and plugins.

Access to Personally Identifiable Information

Healthcare organizations can better control access to PII through access assessment, sensitive data discovery, and classification. Access Assessment evaluates who has access to which data, how they got access, what they’re doing with it, and if they should still have access.

Sensitive data discovery is also essential to determine what information needs protecting and to what extent. Data classification involves tagging data to identify sensitive data and decide what you should implement protective controls.

Critical Elements of Third-party Risk Management in Healthcare

The overarching goal of third-party risk management in healthcare is to empower providers to minimize the risk from third parties and thus better protect their data. The program includes numerous activities that work together to strengthen their security posture.

Vendor Due Diligence

Healthcare organizations must perform due diligence on all vendors. It allows them to gauge the security risk posed by each high-risk vendor to the organization’s cybersecurity and data security. Due diligence is usually done through vendor questionnaires that assess and compare a vendor’s security setup to industry standards.

The questionnaire should include questions about the vendor’s data security practices, business recovery plans, and disaster recovery plans. In addition, their regulatory compliance with laws and industry standards like HIPAA compliance, Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH), and Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) should also be verified.

Third-party Risk Assessment

In addition to due diligence, healthcare organizations must perform a third-party risk assessment. Vendor risk assessments evaluate the relationship and risks based on their services and devise plans to address them. Your company must implement both short-term and long-term measures to eliminate immediate threats.

Assess Vendor Cyberdefense and Governance

During the assessment process, it’s vital to understand every vendor’s cyber defense and governance ecosystem by asking questions like:

What network or perimeter security measures are in place?
Is firewall protection used?
Is access controlled via password-based systems or multi-factor authentication?
Does the vendor perform penetration testing and vulnerability scans?
Are vendor employees trained in cyber defense?
Who is primarily responsible for IT decision-making in the vendor’s organization?
Does the vendor outsource any IT services to fourth parties that can increase risk exposure?

Based on the information gathered from the above activities, the healthcare provider or third party must be prepared to take the required actions to eliminate any risks identified. It’s also essential to ensure that security measures required by HIPAA, HITECH, or other laws and industry standards are implemented by both the vendor and the healthcare organization.

ZenGRC is Your Third-Party Risk Expert

In the ever-growing cyber threat landscape, the healthcare industry is particularly vulnerable to bad actors looking to access healthcare systems and steal healthcare data.

Additionally, as third parties play an increasingly important role in the healthcare value chain, the risk to healthcare organizations is exponential.

Healthcare organizations cannot afford a laid-back attitude toward cybersecurity and data protection. Instead, they must adopt a robust third-party risk management program with the help of a comprehensive platform like ZenGRC.

ZenGRC is an integrated risk management platform that reveals third-party risk across the entire organization. It shows where third parties are creating risk, how it is changing, and how providers can manage it to mitigate business exposure.

ZenGRC helps operationalize risk management. It simplifies compliance and regulatory efforts with automation and workflows. Schedule a demo today to learn more.