Not all cybersecurity vulnerabilities are created equal. Some vulnerabilities have the potential to bring the entire organization to a halt, such as in the case of ransomware. Meanwhile, other vulnerabilities may only create limited opportunities for exploitation, putting them lower on the list of things to patch.

As cyber attacks and security breaches have increased in recent years, managing digital supply chain risks is becoming more difficult. Cybercriminals exploit vulnerabilities in the ecosystem of less secure suppliers and third-party vendors to gain access to larger institutions. These institutions need to look beyond their own cybersecurity maturity to be successful; cyber risks need to be identified across the ecosystem.

Cyber attacks and data breaches are top of mind for businesses around the world as attacks on vulnerable networks persist. It is more important than ever to ensure cyber security and resilience programs are in place for your business and third-party suppliers. The information and communications technology (ICT) supply chain is a globally-interconnected ecosystem that involves CT software, hardware, and services including suppliers, vendors, and contractors.

Leaders from the SEC, Cyber Threat Alliance, and National Association of Corporate Directors recently joined with SecurityScorecard to share their insights on the state of cybersecurity risk management today. Earlier this month, the New York Department of Financial Services (NY DFS) announced efforts to modernize their supervision process, with the creation of the Cybersecurity and Information Technology Baseline Risk Questionnaire (CIBRQ).

It might sound confusing at first, but knowing who your third parties also rely on for their day-to-day business operations is key to building out a smarter and more informed vendor risk management program. Commonly known as fourth-party concentration risk, the ability to determine the fourth-party vendors in your digital supply chain that serve a majority of your third-party vendors can help organizations avoid potentially catastrophic supply chain risk from such a dependency.

One of the most frustrating challenges of vendor risk management is chasing outstanding security questionnaires. But with some clever operational strategies, you’ll never need to worry about delayed risk assessments impacting your SLAs again. To learn how to encourage your vendors to complete their risk assessments faster, read on.

The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is one of the world’s most popular regulations. Though the European Union designed the GDPR to protect European citizens, its compliance transcends European borders, impacting most businesses collecting personal data via their websites - because you can’t control whether a European citizen accesses your website. Third-party vendors often require access to sensitive personal data to deliver their services.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology is an agency within the U.S. Department of Justice. It was founded in 1901 to support science and technological development. For decades, it has provided guidance on computer security. In 2014, in cooperation with public and private sector experts, the NIST released its cybersecurity framework. The framework combines best practices and industry standards to help organizations deal with cybersecurity risks.

Cyber attacks and data breaches are top of mind for businesses around the world as attacks on vulnerable networks persist. It is now more important than ever to ensure cybersecurity and resilience. But how do these two practices differ? This blog highlights the differences between cybersecurity and cyber resilience and how to secure your business for optimal cyber protection.

While your security staff tends to work the same business hours as everyone else, it often feels like threat actors never take a day off. Because an attack can and will come from any direction at any time, an organization’s cyber readiness is paramount. Your cyber readiness is the level at which you’re able to identify and respond to an attack.

When it comes to cybersecurity, organizations need to be well-prepared for what comes next. Not only are cybercriminals leveraging ever more advanced technology, but the cost of a breach — in terms of cost, reputation, and damage — is on the rise. Mitigating risk requires having a robust incident response plan in place and dedicated team members on standby. Let’s take a closer look.

As cybercrimes and security breaches become more sophisticated, data protection strategies have become more important to business survival. A critical element in an organization’s ability to effectively handle these incidents is to reduce downtime and minimize damage. This is where an effective incident response and disaster recovery plan comes into play.

Businesses are moving their data to the cloud to reduce costs and increase their agility. As more applications and data migrate to the cloud, the risk of sensitive data and applications being exposed dramatically increases. In addition, as organizations deploy applications and services in different cloud environments, maintaining security and compliance across the board is becoming more complex than ever before.

Over the last few years, supply chain attacks have increased in number and sophistication. As companies accelerate their digital transformation strategies, managing third and fourth-party risk and a complete look into their security posture becomes more important to securing data and meeting mission-critical compliance requirements. According to one survey, 60% of security leaders plan to deploy supply chain security measures in 2022.

Can TPRM programs integrate with my existing cybersecurity framework? These are just some of the questions troubling stakeholders at the precipice of a TPRM program implementation. While left answered, these questions cause delays in the onboarding of an initiative that could prevent a catastrophic third-party breach. Whether you’re considering implementing a TPRM program, or not sure how to even begin the implementation process, this article will be your guiding light.

While cybersecurity might be under the umbrella of IT, make no mistake: a breach will impact the entire business, making it the entire organization’s responsibility to be able to understand and take action on risk. This means that your organization needs to have a holistic view of risk that can enable the risk intelligence required to not only have technical discussions, but business conversations about cyber risk.

Earlier this month, the United Nations (U.N.) released its latest Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction (GAR2022). For those of us who assess risk for a living, it is a sobering read.

Running penetration tests of a mature web application is always a great challenge. Systems are usually well hardened, and scanners fall short of flagging anything interesting, requiring an experienced security engineer to identify vulnerabilities using advanced exploitation methods. On the other side, some applications are going for their first release ever or release after a major code change.

The supply chain for organizations has become increasingly susceptible to unplanned cybersecurity interruptions that negatively impact revenue, inventory, and consumer confidence. As a result, there has been an increasing focus on understanding how critical services are delivered, the reliance on third parties and fourth parties, and key risk controls that can be implemented to mitigate the risk of cyber security incidents.

Most cyber insurance policies include a form of value-added service meant to help policyholders avoid cyber incidents. These services create differentiation in the market for insurers and help the bottom line. In fact, a recent survey of cyber insurers found that risk engineering services are a bigger driver of profitability than underwriting accuracy. Yet, we know that the dynamic nature of cyber risk has insurers struggling to keep up and new approaches to evaluating that risk are needed.

SecurityScorecard joined U.S. cybersecurity leaders and the cybersecurity community at the 2022 RSA Conference in San Francisco, California from June 5-9. The RSA Conference is one of the world’s leading cybersecurity events, and SecurityScorecard was proud to join our community in-person at San Francisco’s Moscone Center.

From small school districts and not-for-profit organizations with limited cyber defense budgets to major Fortune 500 companies with sophisticated cyber defense teams, understanding what to do in the first 48 hours following a significant cyber event is essential in protecting your organization and limiting the potential damage.

One of the most critical factors to effective cybersecurity is time. The longer a vulnerability remains unaddressed, the more opportunity you give hackers to get into your system and wreak havoc. Think about it like this: imagine that you leave your laptop bag sitting on the passenger seat of your car. If you run into the store to get milk but forget to lock the door, the odds are that the laptop bag will still be there when you get back.

There has been a lot of talk recently about cyber resilience. There is no doubt that the ability to bounce back from a security event is important, however, all of the resiliency banter seems to be happening at the peril of sound risk management processes. It is safe to say that the path to resilience is paved with risk management.

I was listening to a recording of some colleagues speaking with a customer about security ratings and cyber insurance and there were some confusions in the discussion that troubled me and I wish that I had been there to help clear them up. Or at least try. So this little musing is meant to do that..