The ongoing cyberattack on Change Healthcare, a major player in medical claims processing in the United States, had profound repercussions across the healthcare sector. With the company forced to disconnect over 100 systems, medical claims processing ground to a halt. This disruption, termed by the president and chief executive of the American Hospital Association as “the most serious incident of its kind” in healthcare, brought many medical providers to the brink of closure.

Today almost every organization outsources at least some part (if not many parts) of its operations to third parties. That means those organizations must govern the risks of those third parties — but obtaining the assurance you want from your third parties is a daunting task.

In light of the SEC's cybersecurity disclosure regulations in the US and NIS2 in Europe, corporate executives and institutional investors are facing a pressing need to align their expectations and improve understanding around cybersecurity risk management. The evolving threat landscape and regulatory environment highlight the importance of cohesive strategies to measure, prioritize, mitigate, and communicate cyber risks effectively.

SecurityScorecard STRIKE threat researchers discovered 12 zero-days in customer environments in the last year. Attacks are increasingly targeting third-party software. The zero-day vulnerability that emerged in Progress Software’s MOVEit Transfer product last year was a stark reminder of the real-world impact of such vulnerabilities. It wreaked havoc on businesses and governments worldwide, with cyber criminals exploiting it since May of 2023.

‍ Over the past few decades, cyber attackers have increasingly wreaked havoc on the market, taking advantage of newer, more sophisticated ways to exploit system vulnerabilities. However, in fear of losing competitive advantages, organizations had notoriously downplayed the impact of these attacks, misleading investors and resulting in stock prices that did not accurately represent the risk landscape. ‍

Now more than ever, the specter of cyber threats looms large over organizations of all sizes and sectors. The consequences of a data breach stemming from just one vulnerability can be catastrophic, ranging from financial losses to irreparable reputational damage. As businesses strive to reinforce their defenses against these evolving threats, the need for a reliable and predictive cybersecurity risk assessment tool has never been greater.

The deadline for achieving complaince with the Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA) will be here before you know it, with enforcement beginning in January 2025. With Third-Party Risk Management being the central focus of the EU regulation, it’s imperative to cater your TPRM program to the DORA regulation to achieve sustainable compliance. In this post, we outline the DORA requirements related to third-party risk management and explain how to comply with them.

Digital transformation initiatives and the adoption of cloud, mobile, and remote work models have eviscerated the traditional security perimeter. Enterprise assets are distributed across the cloud, endpoints, mobile, and personally owned devices and expanded the attack surface in the process. Organizations are increasingly vulnerable to attack via unknown and unmanaged Internet-facing assets.

Enterprise organizations face big challenges in managing software application risk at scale. With hundreds of developers working on thousands of applications across numerous business units, the complexity of ensuring security throughout the software development life cycle (SDLC) is staggering.

Organizational risk management often mentions third-party risk management (TPRM) and vendor risk management (VRM). The cybersecurity industry commonly uses these terms interchangeably, but there is a distinct difference between these two crucial components of an organization's broader risk management strategy.