Recently, the Securities and Exchange Commission adopted rules about the handling and reporting of cyber risks and breaches.
With these new guidelines and regulations, public companies and organizations must disclose cybersecurity incidents experienced in a timely manner and any information regarding their cybersecurity risk management, strategy and governance annually.
Although these new rules and guidelines may seem excessive to some, they're an essential step towards a stronger and more proactive approach to cyber risk management.
Being audit-ready means having a holistic approach to security and compliance that includes risk assessment, real-time continuous compliance monitoring, training for employees and effective communication.
To have the best understanding of where risk lies in the business, organizations should leverage a risk management and compliance tool.
By auditing against compliance standards, organizations are able to see where their inherent business risk lies, and in turn, make decisions to remediate that risk and reduce exposure.
A robust risk management tool will allow security leaders to quickly understand, evaluate and convey the impact of risk on the business aspects they care about the most.
2) Boards need to have a deeper understanding of cyber risk and security than ever before.
It's also essential to consider the board members' awareness of what's going on within the organization, what initiatives are currently in place and what risks impact success.
To do this effectively, security leaders must translate cyber risk and its impact into a language that board members will understand - dollars and cents.
Instead, communicating that the organization has an increased risk of reputational damage or fines for noncompliance ensures the impact is conveyed and they can invest in the right areas to reduce those risks.
Security leaders should re-visit their current cybersecurity plan, showing the board where investments are needed to close the cyber risk gap.
3) The new rules will significantly benefit companies that talk more about their risk.
Most importantly, this ruling emphasizes the need to take a proactive approach to risk management.
Organizations must understand their cyber risk posture, and the context of their risks, so they are prepared to act if a risk is realized.
As the SEC sets this precedent, it benefits companies to make risk a part of every conversation.
This requires having a 360-degree view of cyber risk and its constituent parts to enable action within the required timeframe.
With a proactive approach to cybersecurity and risk management, companies will be further prepared to monitor for threats and vulnerabilities, reporting them quickly as they arise.
Meghan is a passionate security and risk evangelist, DIBs champion, and home-renovation enthusiast specializing in process improvement and program iteration.
Meghan enjoys giving back to the security and risk community through blogs, whitepapers, webinars, conference presentations, and podcasts.
This Cyber News was published on www.cyberdefensemagazine.com. Publication date: Sun, 04 Feb 2024 07:13:05 +0000