How a risk-based approach to cybersecurity can help organizations

As today's cyber risks pose threats to the entire governmental ecosystem, cybersecurity must be a top business priority.

The government and public sector organizations are gearing up for an age of digital transformation that requires an integrated mechanism that considers multiple facets of an organization. It is essential that we move from cybersecurity to cyber resilience to prepare for the complexities faced in today’s increasingly unstable geopolitical environment.

Despite the growing concern around maintaining cyber resilience, the pressure to deliver digital transformation at speed has led organizations, especially in the government and public sector, to bypass cybersecurity processes. The white paper, “Cyber resilience through a risk-based approach”, outlines how the government and public sector organizations should focus on cyber resilience capabilities that reduce the impact of a successful cyber attack. It presents the risk-based approach to implement a holistic and effective cyber governance, risk and compliance program that primarily include cyber risk assessments supported by thorough technical assessments, such as vulnerability assessments, penetration testing and critical assets configuration reviews.

Geopolitics and the digital domain

Considering recent technological developments and the interconnected world, we can no longer separate the world of technology from the world of business and neglect the importance of modern technology for critical operations. It is not possible to escape from cyber warfare in today’s world. Global instability, political tension or even cyber attacks in general, oblige countries to reconsider their international strategies and include cybersecurity as a security against cyber attacks which may otherwise have catastrophic effects in vital sectors.

Evolution of cybersecurity regulatory environment

In trying times, when the world is making their comeback with lessons learned during the COVID-19 pandemic, we are constantly reminded that the environment is dynamic and daunting. We have seen the unprecedented pace of digital transformation across public and private sectors, and their increased utilization of technologies to achieve strategic objectives. With the ever-dynamic threat landscape, traditional guidance on cybersecurity best practices may not be sufficient to address threats. This drives state authorities to conceptualize and implement regulations that would enforce implementation and operation of cyber resilience, to combat next-generation risks. The goal of having a cyber resilience environment is to call governments to provide structured methods to measure an organization’s ability to defend against attacks.

Governance approach for managing cyber resilience

With the ever-growing, dynamic threat and geopolitical landscape, it’s imperative for the government and public sector organizations to promote cybersecurity resilience as part of its mandates. Resilience is the organizational capability to sense, resist and react to disruptive events by adapting and reshaping operations in their environment. Cybersecurity resilience aims to defend against potential cyber attacks and ensure survival following an attack, without the loss or threat to data. The fast-evolving nature of the cyber risk environment makes it increasingly important that the government and public sector organizations adopt a risk-based approach to cybersecurity. Organizations simply cannot protect everything to the same degree. The first step is getting the cyber governance right. Management understands that cybersecurity is a major risk, perhaps even the number one risk. They know the risk is fast-changing and that it’s difficult to keep up with.

Managing cyber risks and compliance requirements

Organizations need to take an enormous step to identify and manage the risks associated with their businesses and protect against cyber attacks to minimize any impact on the business operations. Establishing a cyber risk management strategy can assist in making informed risks decisions that are attached to business operations from internal and external perspectives. The goal of a cybersecurity risk management process is to identify, assess, mitigate and monitor cyber risks of an organization's information assets.

Cyber resilience requires an integrated approach to governance, risk and compliance by factoring in the risks and threats along with the resilience capabilities. In order to maintain a resilient ecosystem, it is of utmost importance that cyber governance, risk and compliance functions within organizations are empowered to drive the implementation of key security requirements across the various business units.

Conclusion

New technologies are accelerating the pace of digital change and the broad-scale use of automation, data analytics and the cloud. The government and public sector organizations are increasingly concerned about their resilience capabilities and are looking to provide a safer, more secure, yet affordable approach to securing their systems and data. A breach from a supplier or third party could be one of the greatest risks they face.

Creating a holistic, business-driven approach to combat cyber attacks might feel overwhelming when the organization is already facing disruption on many different fronts. Nevertheless, cybersecurity has to be given top priority by modern government and public sector organizations. Here are the top 10 things management needs to consider while implementing cyber resilience plans:

1. Integrate cybersecurity into the talent strategy and create a CISO fit for the organization.
2. Clearly define the cybersecurity responsibilities of the organization and establish RACI matrices.
3. Put cybersecurity at the forefront of a cross-functional business strategy.
4. Ensure that cybersecurity is at the heart of digital innovation.
5. Understand how regulation impacts operations, and work with regulators to establish cyber resilience capabilities.
6. Risk rate all your key assets and determine a protection approach for each one with a focus on the most critical ones.
7. Develop a dynamic and nimble cybersecurity risk management model.
8. Integrate compliance into the cybersecurity strategy.
9. Strengthen resilience by having a clear crisis action and communication plan.
10. Collaborate with peers to seek out more intra-sector solutions.