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Eliminating Language Barriers Between Information Security and the C-Suite

Whether or not security operations pose a core focus to a company or are an afterthought, the largest obstacle now affecting business and security outcomes is the language barrier that exists between security teams and the C-Suite.

In general, security groups’ budgets have increased over the years, with organizations adding more vendors to the mix, “layering” security with the latest new tool to address the latest threat. One of the newest such tools is “threat intelligence” which organizations are using to form an “intelligence-led security” program, a security operations center, or incident response capabilities. While threat intelligence and other solutions hold the answers to many of the important questions executives ask about cyberattacks, this terminology means nothing to C-level executives, nor does the output from these systems and programs. What does it mean that you have stopped one billion attacks this past month? What impact have the 30 incident responses you’ve run over that same period of time had on the business? What’s the significance to reducing response time from one month to one day?

Executives running and overseeing a company have two primary concerns: increasing revenue and shareholder value. There is a big disconnect between security and the C-suite because they speak two different languages. One is a very technical language that needs a translation layer to explain it to the executives. The other is a very strategic language that needs to be conveyed in a way that makes security part of the team and company, and ensures alignment and participation with the business units and executive suite.

What’s the fix? Communication. Each group has to understand the other at least enough to relay the core concepts as they apply to the other and in a language the other understands. As a first step, some companies are adding a technical expert—a “designated geek,” if you will—to their board of directors so they can work on improving communication and understanding. While that can help, it takes a lot more to make sure priorities, efforts and results don’t get lost in translation.

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A Two-Way Street

Executives need to include the chief information security officer or chief technical officer as part of their strategic discussions and make sure that security leadership has the ability to push that communication down to their teams in a way everyone understands. To that end, CISOs and executives need to train their security operations personnel to ensure they understand the business. This starts by asking some critical questions:

  • Does every member of the security team understand what is it that you sell/produce/provide?
  • What are the things your security teams need to watch out for to protect revenue?
  • Many organizations operate large industrial control systems. If your organization has such a system, is your security team aware of this?
  • If your company is moving into the cloud or is about to launch a mobile app, does your security team know about this and have you enabled them to get the right monitoring in place to protect it?
  • Have you involved the security team as you were designing that new revenue stream, or evolving your business model in some other way, to be sure that security isn’t an afterthought?
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These are just a few examples of how executives need to think about the enterprise to ensure that security is strategically aligned. It is incumbent on the business to train the security personnel on its priorities so that security teams can look for attacks that are important to the business and take action.

Likewise, security teams need to change how they communicate to the C-suite. Every security team should conduct a stakeholder analysis to identify who needs to be informed of what and when. It all comes down to content, format and frequency. Make sure you have regular communications with not only your peers in security and network operations, but with the business units, risk management, C-level executives, the board of directors, and anyone else in the company that is involved in the day-to-day objectives and operations of the company. The CISO should be the link to make this connection happen, working with executives to establish regular communication.

There is no “right way” to communicate.

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Some executives and boards are more technical than others. Security teams need to take the time to learn what type of communication will be most effective or forever struggle to align security with the business. Sticking with the generated metrics of number of events, alerts and incidents per month has far less impact than an update that contains the “who, what, when, where and why” of a thwarted attack. For example: “We identified and stopped one attack this month from a cyber espionage group targeting our Western European manufacturing facility, which is responsible for $20 million per year in revenue to the company.”

For those in security who feel they can’t deliver such a statement because their security infrastructure doesn’t provide that kind of information about threat actors and campaigns, there is a path forward. Look into creating a program that uses adversary-focused, contextual cyber threat intelligence and make sure you understand enough about your business to know the impact of threats against the various business units. With the communication gap closed, and security and business goals aligned, organizations can become more secure, and profitable.

Can ORSA Work For All Businesses?

In addition to impacting the way countless organizations conduct business, the 2008 financial crisis was an awakening for regulators charged with reviewing and setting the rules that shape the way organizations assume risk. Insurance, perhaps the riskiest business of them all, did not go unscathed.

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Not only are insurers responsible for managing their own internal risks, but careful calculations and guidelines are built into their business models to ensure that the risks fall within set parameters.

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Regulators will argue, however, that this wasn’t always the case.

Own Risk Solvency Assessment (ORSA) was adopted and now serves as an internal process for insurers to assess their risk management processes and make sure that, under severe scenarios, they remains solvent.

U.S. insurers required to perform an ORSA must file a confidential summary report with their lead state’s department of insurance.  The assessment aims to demonstrate and document the insurer’s ability to:

  • Withstand financial and economic stress with a quantitative and qualitative assessment of exposures
  • Effectively apply enterprise risk management (ERM) to support decisions
  • Provide insights and assurance to external stakeholders

While ORSA is requirement for insurers, a new study by RIMS and the Property Casualty Insurers Association, Communicating the Value of Enterprise Risk Management: The Benefits of Developing an Own Risk and Solvency Assessment Report, maintains that ORSA can be used for all organizations looking to strengthen their ERM function.

According to the report:

Whether or not required by regulation or standard-setting bodies, documenting the following internal practices is a worthwhile endeavor for any company in any sector to utilize in their goal to preserve and create value:

  • Enterprise risk management capabilities

  • A solid understanding of the risks that can occur at catastrophic levels related to the chosen strategy

  • Validation that the entity has adequately considered such risks and has plans in place to address those risks and remain viable.

The connection between the ORSA regulation imposed on insurers and the development of an ERM program within an organization outside of the insurance industry is apparent.

ORSA and ERM both require the organization to strengthen communication between business functions. Breaking down those silos are key to uncovering business risk, but perhaps more importantly, is the interconnectedness of those risks.

Secondly, similar to ERM in non-insurance companies, ORSA requires risk management to document its findings, processes and strategies. Such documentation allows for the process of managing risks to be effectively communicated to operations, senior leadership, regulators and stakeholders. Additionally, documentation enhances monitoring efforts, the ability to make changes to the program and is a benefit that allows ERM to reach a “repeatable” maturity level as defined by the RIMS Risk Maturity Model.

Developing an ERM program has become a priority for many organizations as senior leaders recognize the value of having their entire organization thinking, talking and incorporating risk management into their work. Examining and implementing ORSA strategies can be an effective way for risk professionals to get their ERM program off the ground and operational.

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Key Steps to a Robust Risk Management Program

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Our business environment is constantly changing—technologies improve, regulations are modified, competition increases, and demand evolves. Effective risk management grants an ability to adapt to these changes.

Recent headline events, including the Volkswagen emissions deception, the Wells Fargo scandal, and the penalty paid by Dwolla to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), illuminate powerful motivators for strong risk management programs. Key to a robust program is preventing stressful, and possibly catastrophic, surprises.

When Plains All American Pipeline failed to detect corrosion in its pipeline, for example, the result was a 3,000-barrel oil spill and millions of dollars in fines. The corrosion had run under the radar because the company did not delegate sufficient inspection resources and did not maintain proper procedures and systems for preventing problems from escalating into emergencies. Risk management best practices, however, could have standardized these procedures throughout the organization and prevented the disaster from occurring.

Complying with regulators like the SEC and CFPB
Dwolla, a small, private e-commerce and online payment company, was found by the CFPB to be guilty of risk management negligence for inadequate data security practices. The catch is that Dwolla did not suffer a data breach and none of its customers were compromised.
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The CFPB fined Dwolla $100,000 as part of its increased focus on companies’ existing prevention strategies. Regulators are no longer simply pursuing organizations that have suffered risk management incidents; organizations need to take proactive approaches rather than simply hope to get by.

Improving productivity and encouraging innovation
An independent, peer-reviewed report, “The Valuation Implications of Enterprise Risk Management Maturity,” published in The Journal of Risk and Insurance, proved that organizations with mature ERM programs (as defined by the RIMS Risk Maturity Model) can achieve a 25% firm valuation premium over those without. Risk management does not have to be a burdensome addition to daily responsibilities—and if it is executed properly, it won’t. It simplifies daily operations by increasing transparency and allowing more resources to be devoted to value-add activities, like product development and customer services.

Checklist for evaluating your risk management efforts

A better question than “does my organization perform risk management?” is “how effectively does my organization identify and mitigate risks?” The following checklist outlines characteristics common to effective risk management programs. Your organization should prioritize development in these areas.

  1. Effective risk management governance

Boards, through their risk oversight role, are accountable for a risk’s material impact, whether the cause is at the executive level or on the front lines. The SEC considers “not knowing about a material risk” negligence, which carries the same penalties as fraud.

  • The board must monitor the effectiveness of the organization’s risk management process, ensuring it reaches all levels and business areas.

  • Internal auditors must independently confirm the board is informed on all material risks.
  • All material risks must be disclosed to shareholders, along with evidence that they are effectively mitigated.
  1. Performance management and goal management
  • Divide corporate objectives into business-unit contributions.
  • Identify business processes contributing to a goal within each business unit.
  • Cascade goals to all front-line managers within contributing processes.

  • Aggregate goal assessments and determine links between contributing business processes.
  1. Consistent risk identification and prioritization

Risk assessments must address more than high-level concerns. Effective assessments drill into risk events, uncovering the root cause, or problem “driving” the risk. Repeatable risk assessments are based on common numerical scales and scoring criteria across departments.

  1. Actionable risk tolerances

Risk appetite is a high-level statement that serves as a guide for strategic decisions. In order to be actionable, it should be accompanied by its quantitative cousin, risk tolerance. Risk tolerance is an effective monitoring technique for key performance goals and risk metrics.

  1. Centralized risk monitoring and control activities

Risk managers need to do more than design processes to identify risks and appropriate responses. A critical third component—monitoring—is the verification of a control’s effectiveness over the risk. A few key things to keep in mind to make monitoring effective:

  • Adjust risk assessments over time (spend less time on risks with decreasing indexes).
  • Reduce testing by identifying areas that can share controls (increase organizational efficiency).
  • Link risks and activities to determine which processes need to be monitored (prioritize activities/initiatives).
  • Monitor business metrics (discover concerning trends before they affect the organization).
  1. Forward-looking risk and goal reporting and communication

In order to continue funding their organizations’ risk management programs, boards need evidence that those programs are working. Risk managers should ask two basic questions before reporting to the board:

  • How might identified risks affect the board’s strategic objectives and key concerns?
  • Which metrics or trends most validate the program’s effectiveness?

These items are just a starting point for an analysis of your organization’s program. For a more in-depth blueprint and “state of ERM” report, take the RIMS Risk Maturity Model (RMM), a free best-practice assessment tool that scores risk management programs and generates an immediate report of your organization’s risk maturity.

Vendor Risks: Preventing Recalls with ERM

Recall
In 2016 alone, there have been dozens of recalls, by food companies, car manufacturers, and vitamin producers, among others. Not only do these recalls greatly impact a company’s bottom line, they can also affect the health and safety of consumers. With this in mind, what can organizations—both within the food industry and otherwise—do to improve their chances of uncovering suppliers operating in subpar conditions? How can they mitigate the risk of recalls?

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Customers of CRF Frozen Foods, for example, a full-line, individually quick frozen processing plant that packages fruits and vegetables for a variety of customers, recently had big problems when it was linked to a widespread listeria outbreak. Contaminated foods affected big-name distributors like Trader Joe’s, Costco and Safeway, and some customers fell ill as a result.
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Even though a series of sanitation concerns and other facility issues at CRF had been exposed by regulators as early as 2014, the factory was allowed to continue operating and its customers weren’t notified.

Red flags raised by regulators aren’t always seen by the companies they’re most relevant to, however.

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The fact that these outbreaks occurred seems to demonstrate that customers’ vendor management practices either failed or simply weren’t robust enough to detect issues. It all comes down to effective enterprise risk management (ERM). ERM provides the tools and framework that allow any organization to standardize processes and effectively mitigate vendor risk.

An ERM approach is characterized by standard criteria, interdepartmental communication, and automatic alerts and notifications. It keeps everyone in the organization on the same page and ensures assessment results are always understandable and accessible. This eliminates redundancy in the risk management process. As a result, you can quickly and easily determine the last time your organization evaluated a supplier. Something as simple as a notification that regulators have published new requirements might save your organization from acquiring infected or defective products.

There are three general stages that apply to any successful risk management effort:

  1. Identify specific risks, followed by assessment and evaluation
  2. Implement tailored mitigation activities to address those risks
  3. Monitor those mitigations to ensure long-term effectiveness

The first step serves as the foundation for steps two and three. Without a proper understanding of what risks your organization faces, it is impossible to prioritize and mitigate them. Especially across multiple business departments or within supply chains—it is quite difficult to identify and account for every variable.

To keep up with vendors’ fluctuating conditions, teams need to systematically identify and assess risks, catching them as they crop up. Preventing assessments from becoming obsolete is the key to keeping a pulse on everything that may affect the business, therefore avoiding unwanted surprises.

Risk assessments also help determine the best way to allocate limited resources. Minimizing vendor-related risks needn’t be burdensome, however. It should be a streamlined process that, by enabling you to avoid harmful incidents, improves operational efficiency. Once your risk assessments reveal the areas of highest priority, you can determine exactly how to mitigate those concerns.

The Freedom of Information Act can be extremely helpful when it comes to your third-party risk management efforts. It grants all companies the right to ask vendors for specific information about plant processes, worker training, sanitation practices, and maintenance. Suppliers are required to be forthcoming with all information (when asked), and teams need to take advantage of this opportunity. It is an important part of the risk management equation and will help you understand your risks before disruptions occur.

Performing vendor risk assessments—in the form of inspections, questionnaires, and service level agreements—generates an enormous amount of data and information. This information is useful for mitigating risk, but only if it is up to date, consistent and distributed to the appropriate individuals. The Freedom of Information Act provides an opportunity to evaluate suppliers with robust risk assessments, and ERM provides the means to capitalize on that opportunity. Ad-hoc assessments of current and prospective vendors, without standardized processes, will only get your team so far.

Steps to Effective ERM

Capitalizing on your vendor assessment rights is only part of the equation. Without an appropriate means of processing, distributing, and making data actionable, you’re back at square one. To make sense of important data, follow these steps:

  1. Create a taxonomy: define relationships between risks, requirements, goals, resources and processes. If each area of the business uses its own system for identifying and classifying risk, the resulting information is subjective and unusable by other departments. There is also significant information overlap—and therefore waste. Use your existing information to create a standard for data collection with minimal work.
  1. Streamline with the standardized risk assessments identified in step one. Risk assessments can be conducted in many different formats and qualities. Use resources already in place and streamline the results using the standard from step one. The most effective way to collect risk data is by identifying the root cause, or why an incident occurred. Honing in on the root cause provides useful information about what triggers loss and your organization’s vulnerabilities.
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    When you link a specific root cause to a specific business process, designing and implementing mitigations is simpler and more effective.

  1. Connect mitigation activities to each of the key risks in these processes. A risk taxonomy gives you a more holistic understanding of all the moving parts in your organization. This makes it easier to design mitigation activities.
  1. Connect incidents, complaints and metrics (for each business process) to mitigation activities. Typically, companies already dedicate many resources to monitoring business performance, collecting information about incidents, complaints and metrics. These processes are often inefficient and ineffective. Simply connecting them to mitigation activities, however, identifies the reason such incidents happen. You can then take straightforward corrective actions, meeting top priorities and allocating resources with forward-looking measures. Risk management, after all, is not about minimizing fallout after an incident, but preventing such an incident from happening in the first place.

To make this entire process effective, management must work to develop an enterprise-wide risk culture. ERM is not just an executive-level process, but should be pushed all the way to frontline managers, where everyday decisions are made and the risks are known—but resources are often absent.

Approach your vendor risk assessments as you would any other risk assessment—they should be reoccurring and standardized. Perform them regularly and evaluate the results with the same scale and criteria with which you evaluate all other risks. Finally, automate information collection and review so that reporting reveals cross-silo dependencies before these risks turn into scandals. The result will be increased vendor security and the prevention of surprises, at a fraction of the cost.