Proactive Risk Management-Making Your Business Resilient

The global business environment has become significantly more complex in the last decade alone.

These transformational shifts—whether technological, relating to a larger scale of operations, or financial—have presented several opportunities for growth and success to businesses.

However, they’ve also amplified systematic risks related to economic, geopolitical, technological, and environmental concerns.

Therefore, it’s critical for companies to take proactive measures and embed risk capabilities in their strategic plan in order to steer toward resilience and ensure success.

Importance of Proactive Risk Management

Adopting a proactive risk management approach allows an organization to avoid and manage risks—both existing and potential ones—and enables them to shield themselves from crises and unfavourable events.

It also helps companies manage and measure emerging risks. Learning about potential risks, their probability, and their impact empowers organizations to minimize, if not eliminate, their losses.

Implementation of Proactive Risk Management

Proactive Risk Management is not a one-time process, but a continuous one that needs to be embedded as an integral part of the risk culture of an organization. It’s a discipline and a strategic control mechanism that a business has to incorporate in its overall business strategy.

How does it help?

The implementation of an effective risk identification and management plan limits a business’ exposure to potential identifiable internal and external risks. A proactive approach towards risk management can potentially save millions of dollars for organizations and maximize value for stakeholders.

The Challenges

There are several challenges that companies—especially SMEs—face when trying to develop a coherent risk strategy for their business. For instance, they may lack proper understanding in regard to the risks surrounding their business. Moreover, they might lack the relevant tools and required resources to make an effective risk management plan.

How to create a Proactive Management Strategy?

Effective risk management strategies need to be implemented by strategic level management. Senior management should set the direction and scope, middle management should handle the risk mitigation process, and lower level management should manage monitoring and reporting processes.

More importantly, businesses need to unify their risk management initiatives by using an Enterprise Risk Management (ERM) framework. This enables them to align their corporate strategy with business operations and helps them to address risk factors—both internal and external—that may have an adverse impact on the company’s success.

Some of the key steps include:

· Instituting a culture of risk awareness by providing regular training.

· Establishing an objective risk identification process on a routine basis.

· Equipping business units with relevant tools to perform risk evaluation and monitoring.

· Introduce compliance programs to address financial and regulatory risks.

· Define a process to categorize strategic risk opportunities that—if leveraged successfully—can generate positive returns.  

Furthermore, an organization must also opt for a flexible approach to move toward a proactive risk management approach.

This will include making a distinction between Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and Key Risk Indicators (KRIs), as the former is output-focused and can be manipulated easily.  

Incorporating KRIs in the metrics will enable a business to understand how risky an activity is and plan accordingly.  

Cyber Security in Risk Management Plan

According to a survey, cyber incidents such as data breaches, IT failures, and other cybercrime pose a huge threat to global businesses in 2019 and in the future.

An ICAEW report shows that the top five cyber risks that businesses need to address include:

· Ransomware

· Phishing

· Data leakage

· Hacking

· Insider threats

A comprehensive risk management plan includes well-developed cyber risk mitigation processes, procedures, and staff training that can help you protect valuable digital assets. There are several online guides available online to protect your business from cyber crimes.

Final Words

In essence, shifting from reactive to proactive risk management approach and creating an effective ERM model warrants restraint, patience, and—more importantly—a lot of discipline. A dynamic and proactive initiative will help your company to achieve effective governance an result in improved business performance.

If you are looking for dedicated managed security and IT solutions to safeguard your business against potential cyber attacks, consider hiring the services of Lean Security.

We are an Australian-based security firm that provides dynamic and effective solutions to our customers including penetration testing services among several others.

We are a reliable penetration testing provider that offers complete security risk assessment to ensure that every modicum of your business application remains protected.

Contact us by calling +61 (2) 8078 6952 or send us an Email at INFO@LEANSECURITY.COM.AU for more information on how to create a proactive risk management plan and make your business resilient.

Cybersecurity vs. Data Privacy – What’s The Difference?

The cybersecurity world is more vulnerable than ever; every day, cyber-threats are evolving into more advanced and sophisticated versions of themselves. And with the introduction of data regulation acts such as the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), it’s crucial for every organization to pay attention to each and every aspect—no matter how trivial—pertaining to cybersecurity.

Most companies can’t distinguish between cybersecurity and data privacy. However, it’s important to learn about the disparities between these two terminologies.

It’s equally significant to understand why the effectiveness of a privacy program is heavily dependent upon a cogent security plan and how they complement each other.

Definition

Both terminologies—security and privacy—are used interchangeably and in conjunction with each other. However, in reality, they’re quite different.

Security refers to the state of personal freedom, i.e., being safe from potential threats. On the other hand, privacy is a state of being free from unwanted or unnecessary attention.

Principles

When it comes to principles, the term “privacy” is more granular with regard to rights—of both individuals as well as organizations—to personal information.

On the other hand, the term “security” is built on three core principles: preserving the integrity of information assets, protecting confidentiality, and promoting the availability of data and information.

Objectives

Privacy has one sole objective: to provide an individual or organization with the ability to keep their personal information private.

On the other hand, when it comes to security, its primary objective is to safeguard confidential data and informational assets from unauthorized access.

Security has three established sub-objectives: availability, confidentiality, and integrity. All cybersecurity protocols concentrate on at least one of these three goals.

 Programs

Privacy programs focus on protecting the personal information of a user, which may include their login credentials, credit card details, passwords, among other private details.

On the contrary, a security program is not limited to personal information, but extends to protect all digital assets, confidential information, and resources that are stored in the databases of an organization.

A security program focuses on total data and information stored in a system rather than only providing protection to the personal information of individuals or business entities.

Is there a correlation between privacy and security?

Broadly speaking, there’s a possibility that security can be achieved without privacy. However, it’s not possible to achieve privacy without having an effective security system in place. A lapse in security will inevitably affect privacy.

That being said, privacy and security are strongly interlinked, as privacy can be achieved by taking security initiates and the effectiveness of security may depend on the privacy of credentials—which might not always be the case, but true in most cases.

Manage your cybersecurity and data privacy

If you’re looking for dedicated managed security and IT solutions to safeguard your business against potential cyber attacks, consider hiring the services of Lean Security.

We’re an Australian-based security firm that provides dynamic and effective solutions to our customers including penetration testing services among several others.

We’re also a reliable penetration testing provider that offers complete security risk assessment to ensure that every modicum of your business application remains protected.

Contact us by calling +61 (2) 8078 6952 or send us an Email at INFO@LEANSECURITY.COM.AU for more information on data privacy and cybersecurity.

Latest Malwares in 2019 That Pose a Threat to Your Data Security

Every year, cybercriminals employ more sophisticated online attacks than the last, innovating with new malware software to execute cyberattacks on organizations. Considering we’re well into the first quarter of the year, it’s imperative that you familiarise yourself with the latest malwares that pose a threat to your data security. Let’s begin!

Malvertising

Last year, a massive malvertising campaign which targeted iOS devices hijacked an astounding 300 million browser sessions in just 48 hours. This trend continues to be a popular avenue for hackers to inject malware into your computer.

Malvertising campaigns involve injecting malicious code into legitimate web pages, which—once clicked by the user—redirects them to a malicious page. Some examples include web banners that show, “You’ve won a gift card or X amount.”

Wipers

We’ve witnessed several wipers this year, including Black Energy, Destover, Olympic Destroyer, and the infamous Shamoon, all of which were used to destroy data and system integrity, leading to great losses for companies.

Common reasons behind these malware attacks are sending a political or opinionated message. In some cases, the hackers orchestrated these attacks to cover their tracks after data ex-filtration.

Fileless Malware

Fileless malware, also known as a zero-footprint attack, can infect targeted computers without leaving any traces on the local hard drive, making it possible to bypass forensic tools and generic security measures.

This type of malware attack takes advantage of vulnerabilities in web browsers or execute via phishing efforts. This plague is growing each year; it nearly doubled in 2018, and continues to present a major cyber threat in 2019 as well.

Emotet

Once a simple banking Trojan, Emotet has paved its way to become a full-scale malware threat and evolved to become one of the most prevalent malwares of 2019. This Trojanware is used to steal financial data using malicious link, script, macro-enabled document files.

It prompts the victim by showing enticing messages to users, such as upcoming shipment or payment details by impersonating a reputable brand or company. With the advances in technology, it’s expected to become more dangerous and powerful in the years to come.

Ransomware

Ransomware is one of the oldest malware techniques, it’s used to—as the name suggests—seek ransom from victims. It’s a malware that takes control of a computer and encrypts its data. Victims are provided with a link to make a payment in order to restore access to their data.

Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies have made it easier for hackers to perform financial transactions without getting caught. In 2019, businesses—especially SMEs—require protection against ransomware by strengthening their IT controls, or they face the risk of losing out their valuable data.

Nivdort 

Nivdort—also referred to as Bayrob—is a multipurpose malware that is employed to steal passwords, alter system settings and pave the way for additional malware. The most common method of infecting Nivdort is spam emails. As the victims’ addresses are encoded in the binary form, each file has a unique identity, making it an extremely dangerous malware.

Secure your digital assets

If you are looking for dedicated managed security and IT solutions to safeguard your business against potential cyber attacks, consider hiring the services of Lean Security.

We’re an Australian-based security firm that provides dynamic and effective solutions to our customers, including penetration testing services, among several others.

We’re a reliable penetration testing provider that offers complete security risk assessment to ensure that every modicum of your business application remains protected.

Contact us by calling +61 (2) 8078 6952 or send us an Email at INFO@LEANSECURITY.COM.AU for more information on the latest malwares that pose a threat to your data security.

Why Network Security is Important For Your Business

Steps Involved In Web Application Vulnerability Assessment

Web application vulnerability assessment is a type of security test used to evaluate an application’s vulnerabilities such as, faulty coding, weak configuration management, or input validation.

Businesses in all kinds of industries can benefit from web application vulnerability assessment. It can be performed both, manually and automatically to monitor an application’s security and protecting it against all kinds of threats.

Here are the steps involved in web application vulnerability assessment.

Step 1: Information Collection

To conduct effective web application security assessments, testers first have to gather information regarding the target web application. It’s important to understand the architecture, technology, user base, and the code size of the application.

Step 2: Risk Profiling

This step falls into the planning phase of the security assessment. Considering factors such as application size, data, users and more, the tester estimates efforts and divides them for different stages such as scanning, manual testing, mapping findings, and reporting. This step requires the tester to meticulously prioritize and assign efforts to different phases accordingly.

Step 3: Define Scope and Objectives

Before running the web application vulnerability assessment, it’s important to define the objectives of the test. The tester determines what components of the application should be included in the test and which ones should be excluded. This helps the security personnel of an organization understand what sorts of results they can expect from the assessment.

Step 4: Perform the Vulnerability Scan

Before running the test, the tester chooses the security assessment tools that would work best for the target web application. Several factors can influence the choice of a security tool, which include the web application’s dynamics, the performance of the tools, their characteristics, etc.

Moreover, for a successful assessment, it’s important to create a checklist of vulnerabilities and test the web application against all of them. The list should be updated to cover the latest vulnerabilities and all sorts of potential cyber attacks.

Lastly, the scan is performed in a way that targets critical data and functionalities in the beginning to identify high-risk factors early.  

Step 5: Report Creation

The last step entails creating a comprehensive report of the identified potential risks and threats. This will discuss the possible impact of the found vulnerabilities on the business and the appropriate course of action that should be taken by the organization to mitigate them.

If you’re looking for web application security testing for your business, get in touch with Lean Security!

We’ll help evaluate your web app’s security and identify potential risks by using the most comprehensive methodologies. We also offer other IT solutions, including cloud infrastructure testing and penetration testing.

Contact us today for more information.