Why Managing Cyber Risk Is Business Critical Today

Businesses have been investing in cybersecurity for decades, but cybercrime hasn’t gone away. Instead, the opposite has happened, with cybersecurity expected to cost the world an all-time high of US$10.5 trillion by 2025. Considering that the average cost of a data breach is US$4.4 million, it’s easy to see how worldwide cyber attacks can quickly add up.

On top of the direct cost of a cyber attack, data breaches can significantly harm an organization’s reputation among peers, partners, and consumers. So it’s clear that preventing cyber attacks is business critical, but companies must strategically approach cybersecurity to add value to the organization. 

Realistically, there is no amount of investment in cybersecurity that will stop every risk that your company faces. Instead, organizations need to make data-driven decisions focused on business objectives.

Today, we’ll examine why cyber risk mitigation is business critical yet must be done strategically to have a positive business impact. We’ll explore how to center cybersecurity strategies around business goals, how frameworks can guide your initiatives, and why proper risk management is an asset to the business — rather than a money pit.

Why Managing Cyber Risk Is Business Critical Today

Create A Cybersecurity Risk Management Strategy Around Business Strategies

Since it’s unreasonable to expect your business to stop every risk from occurring, how should you approach cybersecurity? Of course, your digital assets and reputation must be protected, but you shouldn’t create an endless drain on resources to do so.

It all begins with a risk assessment in cyber security that identifies and prioritizes risks facing the organization. A thorough assessment will uncover how to best invest cybersecurity resources.

A Brief Overview of Risk Assessment

What exactly is a risk assessment? We won’t dive too deep into this essential practice, but it’s worth providing a brief overview. A risk assessment consists of:

  1. Identify threats and vulnerability pairs, ranging from cyber attacks to hardware failure.
  2. Assess the likely impact of a threat and the likelihood of it occurring. 
  3. Identify potential controls for identified threats.
  4. Create a comprehensive risk assessment document to aid decision-makers in evaluating which controls are worth investing in.
  5. Compare the inherent risk level to the residual risk level.
  6. Follow frameworks to inform which controls are appropriate. 
  7. Continually monitor the effectiveness of controls, removing or refining as necessary.

You can see how risk assessments are vital to crafting cybersecurity strategies based on overarching business objectives. You need first to understand the threats facing your organization, and then you can prioritize potential controls based on the value they provide.

Prioritize High-Value Mitigating Control

Prioritization is based on analyzing the business cost of a risk’s potential impact compared to the investment required to prevent said risk. 

Just like developing a new product or partnering with a new vendor, decision makers should assess the value of implementing a mitigating control and how it relates to broader business objectives, such as ensuring business continuity or reducing operating expenses. 

What is the cost of the control? What is the approximate cost of a risk’s impact? If it costs more to attempt to mitigate the risk than the risk itself would cost your business, it’s likely worth investing in other strategies. 

Continually Monitor and Evaluate Controls

Would you keep investing in a marketing campaign that didn’t have a positive ROI? Probably not, so the same should be true for implemented risk mitigation strategies.

However, many organizations tend to treat mitigating controls as “set it and forget it.” But is the control adding more value than it’s costing? You’ll need to perpetually monitor the results of a mitigation strategy to understand if it’s adding or subtracting value to the business. Measuring key metrics after implementing a control is an essential step in an effective cyber risk management plan.

Cybersecurity is critical to protecting your business, but if resources aren’t invested intelligently based on quantified information, risk mitigation can cost more than it’s worth.

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to give you immediate value and run a full risk assessment in less than 30 days

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Use Cybersecurity Frameworks as a Foundation

Many of the risks facing your business have already been addressed by cybersecurity frameworks. Additionally, staying compliant with frameworks may be a regulatory requirement for your organization. 

A compliance risk assessment will help you identify mitigating controls that must be enacted to stay compliant. Yet, don’t think of these controls as wasted resources since each of them was selected to mitigate common risks effectively. Instead, you’ll likely discover that the controls required by a framework will mitigate the risks identified in your broader risk assessment. 

It’s tempting to treat regulatory compliance requirements by “checking boxes” to avoid fines. Instead, examine how the requirements advance overall business objectives and expand on them with your own strategies. Treating frameworks as a foundation will allow your organization to establish a base level of protection on which you can build cost-effective mitigating measures. 

Effective Risk Mitigation is an Asset to the Business

Cybersecurity is vital to protecting your digital assets, operation ability, and reputation. Yet, flooding the security department with resources will have diminishing returns. Instead, conduct a thorough risk assessment, prioritize high-value strategies, and continually measure the value those strategies add to the business. 

Gathering and analyzing quantitative information is vital to understanding the value a mitigation strategy adds to the business. Centraleyes’ robust platform provides real-time insights into your cybersecurity landscape, including compliance with major cybersecurity frameworks. In addition, our cloud-based platform assists you in automating risk analysis to make data-driven decisions that add value to your organization. 

Book a demo with our cybersecurity experts today to discover how Centraleyes can transform your cybersecurity.

Start Getting Value With
Centraleyes for Free

See for yourself how the Centraleyes platform exceeds anything an old GRC
system does and eliminates the need for manual processes and spreadsheets
to give you immediate value and run a full risk assessment in less than 30 days

Start building your Cyber Risk Management Program
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