Brad Christian

Brad Christian

Senior Search Engine Optimization Specialist

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Understanding Cyber Risk Management

Clear, repeatable processes are key to unlocking operational efficiencies. Cyber risk management is no different. This structured, ongoing process helps organizations identify, assess, and respond to potential threats to their digital assets, information systems, and other key network environments. It aims to improve security stance by creating processes that can be executed procedurally in order to streamline cybersecurity practices and actions.

Cybersecurity risk assessment is key in today's rapidly evolving threat landscape as it improves the efficacy and efficiency of detecting, assessing, and responding to threats. Having repeatable tasks to perform these duties can help expedite detection to minimize the amount of time an adversary can stay hidden in the network, minimizing the potential impact of a breach.

Key Elements of Cyber Risk Management

Cyber risk management consists of four key elements. Let's dive into each:

  1. Risk Identification: Pinpointing potential cyber threats. vulnerabilities, and the potential consequences for the organization should an attack be successful. Includes threats such as ransomware, spyware, and other types of malware that can harm an organization as well as phishing, DDoS attacks, insider threats and more. Also includes vulnerabilities including unpatched software, weak passwords policies, lack of employee training, and more. Finally, it includes the potential impacts of an attack, which can include loss of customer data, financial harm to the organization, intellectual property theft, and more.
  2. Risk Assessment: Evaluating the chances a threat successfully exploits a vulnerability and the potential impact such an exploit would have on the organization. Risk assessment looks at the likelihood of an exploit is taken advantage of and the damage that can be done should that exploit be carried out. Security teams then blend these into a risk matrix to help visualize and prioritize risks based on their combined likelihood and potential impact.
  3. Risk Response: This is where teams plan their response playbook should a breach or attack occur against an identified risk. There are four strategies to risk response: risk avoidance, where teams do not chance the risk by deciding not to implement a specific technology or process due to unacceptable security risks; risk mitigation, where teams take measures to shore up defenses, such as implementing stronger password policies, using firewalls, or training employees; risk transfer, when a security team purchases protection, such as cyber insurance, to offset the potential damage should a breach occur; and risk acceptance, where teams acknowledge and accept low-impact risks after assessing the potential cost of mitigation.
  4. Risk Monitoring: All cyber risk management strategies need to evolve as threats get smarter and more sophisticated, and risk monitoring is where that occurs. In this element of cyber risk management, teams continuously observe how effective the implemented controls are while identifying changes in the threat landscape, leading to reassessment of risks and processes to mitigate them.

Cybersecurity Risk Management Process

The cybersecurity risk management process is continuous, meaning it is constantly updated as threats and vulnerabilities evolve. There are some key steps to ensure the process is repeatable, evolving, and structured:

  • Establish Context: Understand the organizational, business, and legal or regulatory context to plan out and define the scope and boundaries of the risk management effort. This includes identifying the appetite for risk to determine how much impact or likelihood the organization is willing to accept.
  • Risk Identification: As mentioned above, risk identification involves understanding the risks that are present, whether they be vulnerabilities, threats, or potential impact of an attack.
  • Risk Analysis and Evaluation: Performing qualitative or quantitative risk assessments to categorize and rank risks based on the imminent danger they pose. Also includes evaluating which risks are most critical and require immediate attention based on assessed severity.
  • Risk Response or Treatment: Planning and implementing response to risks should an attack be successful. This plan is outlined bearing the organization's appetite for risk in mind.
  • Risk Monitoring and Review: Continuous improvement of the plan based on further reviews of evolving threats or new vulnerabilities, leading to the risk management strategy being adapted to the current threat landscape.

Cybersecurity Frameworks and Best Practices

Several frameworks exist and are widely recognized that are beneficial to leverage in developing and exercising a cyber risk management plan. Here are some examples:

  • NIST Cybersecurity Framework (CSF): This widely adopted voluntary framework, developed by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), is flexible, customizable, and helps organizations take a risk-based approach to managing cybersecurity risks while adhering to industry best practices and other standards.
  • NIST Risk Management Framework (RMF): More prescriptive framework, also developed by NIST, that outlines a seven-step process to manage risk throughout the system development lifecycle. RMF aims to integrate security, privacy, and supply chain risk management while promoting continuous monitoring.
  • ISO 27001/27002: As an international standard, ISO 27001 sets the standards for establishing and managing an information security management system (ISMS) while ISO 27002 provides detailed guidance on leveraging the security controls needed to accomplish the objective set out by ISO 27001. Essentially, ISO 27001 is the what, while ISO 27002 is the how.

Leveraging these frameworks can help improve security stance and improve adherence to best practices. By continuously improving, risk management plans can keep up and stay ahead of threats to help improve defenses overall.

Developing a Cyber Risk Management Plan

When developing your organization's cyber risk management plan, there are some key points to keep in mind for efficacy, efficiency, and thoroughness. First, setting clear objectives for the business and security posture is a must. This ensures the plan has direction from the start, allowing teams to create a deep, focused game plan to ensure a stout security posture.

Next, stakeholders and security teams must be engaged to achieve buy-in and keep key decision makers in the know. This improves the chances of getting budget approvals for new resources, reduce unnecessary questions, and streamline processes.

Finally, the plan must be reviewed and updated regularly in order to adjust to new cyber threat intelligence. This intelligence can include threat feeds, reported attack insights, and more. In updating the cyber risk management plan, teams can leverage the latest threat intelligence to make informed decisions around taking their security stance to the next level.

How NETSCOUT Helps

NETSCOUT helps teams see more of their network to improve cybersecurity. With Omnis Cyber Intelligence and insights from Adaptive Threat Analytics (ATA), teams can surface new threat insights they didn't know were possible. In closing the gap between threat detection and response, teams can reduce mean time to knowledge (MTTK), expediting mean time to response (MTTR). The intelligence gained from ATA can guide risk management by reducing overall risk thanks to its reductions to MTTK, leading to potentially faster remedies to cyberattacks.