Security | Threat Detection | Cyberattacks | DevSecOps | Compliance

According to a 2021 study by UpGuard, over 51% of analyzed Fortune 500 companies were unknowingly leaking sensitive metadata in public documents - data leaks that could be very useful in a reconnaissance campaign preceding a major data breach. Without timely detection solutions, all corporate (and personal) accounts impacted by data leaks are at a critical risk of compromise, which also places any associated private internal networks at a high risk of unauthorized access and sensitive data theft.

IT risk management and cybersecurity are two essential practices that define the effectiveness and security structure of modern organizations. IT risk management is the process of managing and mitigating risks via careful planning, specialized systems, guidelines, policies, and decisions across various sectors, not just cybersecurity. With IT risk management, the IT staff is focused entirely on IT risk mitigation.

Higher education institutions, like colleges and universities, often work with dozens of third-party vendors, which can introduce considerable security risks if the school doesn't maintain a proper vendor risk management (VRM) program. Compromised third parties can pose serious risks to universities, which can expose sensitive data, disrupt business continuity, or incur serious financial damages.

Ransomware is the fast-growing category of cybercrime. It’s estimated that over 4,000 ransomware attacks occur daily. Given the sheer volume of these attacks and the deep attack surface connections between organizations and their vendors, there’s a high likelihood that some of your employee credentials have already been compromised in a ransomware attack, which means the keys to your corporate network could currently be published on a ransomware gang’s data leak site.

Organizations trust third-party vendors to manage large volumes of sensitive customer data, with outsourcing increasing across all industries, including the highly-regulated healthcare sector and financial services. However, service providers don’t necessarily implement the same strict data security standards that these organizations do. Cyber attacks targeting third parties are increasing, according to Gartner.

‍Data leaks happen when sensitive data or personally identifiable information (PII) is accidentally exposed on the internet or dark web. Typically, data leaks only occur due to poor cyber hygiene, weak network security, or software misconfiguration that can lead to unintended data exposure. Without proper data leak detection processes, cybercriminals and hackers can exploit the exposed data without the organization’s knowledge using open-source intelligence (OSINT).

‍Cyber vendor risk management (Cyber VRM) is the practice of identifying, assessing, and remediating cybersecurity risks specifically related to third-party vendors. By leveraging data from data leak detection, security ratings, and security questionnaires, organizations can better understand their third-party vendor’s security posture using Cyber VRM solutions.

The technology industry has unlocked innovation across all sectors as an enabler of digital transformation. Most organizations are now outsourcing critical operations to tech companies, such as cloud providers. Tech vendors are now left to manage an ever-growing volume of sensitive data, which they must secure effectively to prevent large-scale data breaches. IBM and Ponemon Institute’s 2022 Cost of a Data Breach Report found a record high average breach cost of US$4.35 million.

In cybersecurity, triage is a cyber incident response approach to identifying, prioritizing, and resolving cybersecurity attacks, threats, and damages within a network. When simultaneous and multiple attacks occur, an IT security team must prioritize which system or device to assess in order to mitigate, remediate, and salvage important devices and data from further damage.