Risk is an instance that involves exposure to danger. This type of management is understood in the threats faced in your organization, along with the steps that you can take to reduce, prepare and prevent possible situations that can lead to it. Three major areas can pose a risk in an IT framework.
The first involves human-related risks. These involve errors, frauds and internal conflicts, and cyber attacks. The second includes natural hazards, including floods, earthquakes, or fires. The third includes technical risks and hardware failures. Below are tips that help you manage and prevent these risks better.
1. Use a Password Manager
Password managers have become an important recommendation for managing cyber security risks within the last few years. Many security experts will often recommend the use of password managers as a way to combat password re-use, retention, or weak passwords. A password manager is a system that generates, stores, and retrieves random passwords. The password manager generates these passwords.
Every time you create a new account, you must assign a new user name and password. Instead of you having to create a password by yourself, the password manager does it for you. These passwords are often seemingly random with different characters and digits, and you can manually configure settings to allow as many characters and digits as you want in your password.
Password managers will often help you store critical or vital information such as credit card numbers, CVVs, and Pins. Weak passwords are a common practice that has led to data breaches in many companies. Therefore, you will never get to experience password fatigue again.
2. Utilize a VPN
A VPN is short for the virtual private network. They provide two key aspects, the first being privacy and security. Using a VPN allows you to communicate between your local network and an exit node in a different location. This privacy aspect of a VPN and encryptions can help manage risks when using a public WiFi and turn on a VPN option. This will allow you to have encrypted communication.
If you do not use a VPN on a public WiFi network, you will become susceptible to network attacks. In one example, an attacker could intercept between you and the service that you are communicating with. VPNs offer an added layer of privacy and appear that you are working from another country.
3. Use Industry Standard Security Frameworks
When conducting cyber risk management, you must turn towards industry security standards. You need security teams to be high-level frameworks for the organization. To be a transformational security leader, you need to think about technology and how you can deploy it to better manage information risk.
There are also corresponding vulnerabilities that come up, along with controls that can be implemented to manage them in the lower hand corner from an operational perspective. Other key elements include strategy, which requires security managers to align initiatives.
4. Conduct Audits and Assessments
A cyber security risk assessment and audit is a critical step toward risk management. It thoroughly examines a system, finds loopholes and flaws, then evaluates the vulnerability status of your interface. One of the ways to get a comprehensive risk evaluation and vulnerability report is through a SOC 2 audit.
A SOC 2 auditor report is essentially the review of a company’s controls relating to protecting customer data. It consists of five trust services ideas: security, availability, confidentiality, privacy, and integrity. Out of these criteria, security is the primary service that most companies will require so that they can audit.
To meet the SOC 2 audit requirement, you must comply with several controls. SOC 2 defines these controls as points of focus. The organizations will then put those controls and points of focus in place by using different policies and procedures. These policies and procedures will then decide your information security program and your compliance with SOC 2.
Companies aiming to be SOC 2 compliant must pick which of the five trust service criteria they want to comply with. Security is one of the required principal criteria, while other services will depend on the nature and risks associated with your organization. SOC 2 is a very flexible framework that allows you to choose the controls you think and feel will work well with your organization.
To Conclude
Every organization is different, and managing risks will require you to carry out an assessment and then deploy procedures and cyber security frameworks that manage those risks. You also need controls that help you meet security and availability in a way that fits your organization.
