Institutions of higher education (IHEs) are besieged by risk, especially cybersecurity and information security risk. Risk management for these institutions is critical but also extremely challenging, like trying to juggle balls and lighted torches all at once.
In an ornate boardroom, a group of executives gathered at a large round table for their annual strategic planning meeting. Morgan, the CEO, was surrounded by Lana, the VP of Sales; Susan, the CISO, Smith, the COO; and Barbara, Chief Compliance Officer. There was much to get done in the next twelve months, so they were passionately debating how best to invest their limited budget to achieve their goals and to address various sources of risk.
The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) was signed into law before the rollout of major social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. And as such, there are no specific HIPAA rules for social media. However, some HIPAA laws and standards apply to the use of social media by health care organizations and their workers. Because of that, each health care organization must implement a HIPAA social media policy to decrease the risk of HIPAA violations.
Organizations are often left wondering what is the difference between a certification granted by representatives of the Payment Card Industry (PCI) and that of obtaining compliance.
The Risk Management Framework (RMF) is most commonly associated with the NIST SP 800-37 guide for “Applying the Risk Management Framework to Federal Information Systems: A Security Life Cycle Approach,” which has been available for FISMA compliance since 2004. This was the result of a Joint Task Force Transformation Initiative Interagency Working Group; it’s something that every agency of the U.S. government must now abide by and integrate into their processes.
Formulating an IT security risk assessment methodology is a key part of building a robust information security risk management program. The two most popular types of risk assessment methodologies used by assessors are: A risk assessment is a process that aims to identify cybersecurity risks, their sources and how to mitigate them to an acceptable level of risk.
A vendor risk management questionnaire (also known as a third-party risk assessment questionnaire or vendor risk assessment questionnaire) is designed to help your organization identify potential weaknesses among your third-party vendors and partners that could result in a data breach, data leak or other type of cyber attack.
Patient health information is governed by robust rules that determine how this data is handled, stored, and accessed. Federal laws, such as the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) and various state laws strengthen patient rights. HIPAA set a baseline for regulatory compliance with patient health information. Under the “preemption” language in the rule, no state may create less effective or weaker medical privacy protection for individuals.
NIST CSF stands for the National Institute of Standards and Technology Cybersecurity Framework. The NIST CSF consists of best practices, standards, and guidelines to manage cybersecurity program risk. This voluntary framework is divided into three primary parts: the framework core, profiles, and tiers. The NIST CSF core comprises five functions, where each function are further broken down into categories and subcategories. There are currently 23 categories and 108 subcategories in the NIST CSF.
