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First Step to Compliance: A Thorough and Accurate Risk Assessment

litechsol on August 16, 2021

Complying with data privacy and protection regulations wouldn’t give several business owners sleepless nights if it only meant installing a predefined list of security solutions. Compliance goes way beyond this and for good reason. In principle, regulators, local or international, want businesses to:

assess the type of data they store and manage
gauge the potential risks the data is exposed to
list down the remediation efforts needed to mitigate the risks
undertake necessary remediation efforts regularly
and most importantly, document every single step of this seemingly arduous process as evidence

Each of the above steps are mandatory and non-negotiable. A closer look will tell you that installing a list of expensive security solutions comes only after the first three steps in the process have been followed. Skipping past these initial steps and acting merely on presumptuous knowledge is tantamount to leaving your business’ future to sheer chance. It’s anyone’s guess what that would lead to.

That’s why we’re going to explain to you why a thorough and accurate risk assessment is truly the first step towards achieving compliance. Moreover, when repeated regularly, it can help you demonstrate continuous compliance while keeping cyberthreats at bay.

Security Risk Assessments Unearth Crucial Insights

A thorough and accurate risk assessment can unearth a host of crucial insights from even the deepest and darkest alleys of your IT environment to ultimately empower your decision making. Having actionable insights at your disposal can help you build strategies to reduce risk levels in practical ways instead of shooting in the dark by testing various tools.

Here are some of the most important details that become more apparent and unambiguous with every risk assessment.

Baseline of the System

A risk assessment helps you chart out the lifecycle of all data that is collected, stored and managed in your entire network.

Identification of Threats

A meticulous risk assessment identifies all the possible threats, such as intentional, unintentional, technical, non-technical and structural, that your business data is exposed to.

Identification of Vulnerabilities

With each assessment, you get the latest list of vulnerabilities prevalent in your network with respect to patches, policies, procedures, software, equipment and more.

Current Status of Existing Controls

From the assessment report, you can also understand the existing security and privacy controls protecting your business against vulnerabilities.

Probability of Impact Is Critical to Compliance

An accurate assessment report is fully capable of anticipating the probability of a threat that might exploit one of your network’s existing vulnerabilities.

Strength of Impact

Risk assessment also helps you gauge the possible impact of any threat hitting your business.

Imagine how easy it would be for you to build and implement a strategy to fix the security loopholes in your business while maintaining a well-documented record of your efforts.

Why Risk Assessment Is Needed for Compliance

While assessing whether you did everything in your capacity to ensure full compliance with the regulations, you also need to keep in mind that a regulator seeks evidence of compliance – documented reports. Besides helping you chart a successful path to compliance, a thorough risk assessment adds great weightage to demonstrating evidence of compliance. When you present the risk assessment reports along with other documentation, you demonstrate how your business carried out due diligence in upholding principles of data privacy and protection.

Please remember that no regulator expects you to have a fail-safe strategy. What matters is uncompromising intent, informed action and undeterred consistency. If you can demonstrate all this, you will most likely avoid any punitive action as well as a long list of problems could that surface afterwards.

Compliance Help Is Just a Conversation Away

Contrary to what is often claimed, there are no shortcuts to compliance or to any of the steps that lead to it. At the outset, achieving compliance might seem grueling. However, it isn’t as bad as it seems when due process and expert guidance is followed.

A conversation with us is all you need so we can help you walk through the complexities of risk assessment with diligent and customized guidance.

Article curated and used by permission.

Regulations for Securing the Internet of Things

litechsol on August 5, 2021

We are living in the era of Digital Transformation and witnessing first-hand the proliferation of assistive technologies such as the Internet of Things (IoT). It is estimated that the global count of IoT devices will reach around 80 billion by 2025 — a figure that will outnumber the human population tenfold.

This IoT network of physical devices — “things”— designed with embedded sensors, software, and other technologies for the purpose of connecting and exchanging data with other devices and systems over the internet, has generated greater access to data and analytics across all industries and can increase the efficiency and agility of business operations.

The downside of this rapidly emerging technology is the inability to ensure the integrity and privacy of the personal and sensitive information collected, processed, stored, and shared by these IoT devices every day.

Cybercrime is also growing at an exponential rate, increasing the risk that IoT devices and the data they access could be victims of cyberattacks and unauthorized exposure. To date, security for IoT technology has not been a priority or a required part of manufacturing.

However, as hacking incidents and data breaches continue to flood the headlines, we are seeing many global regulatory bodies take action to implement comprehensive guidelines and security standards aimed at improving the security of IoT devices and ensuring that the data they handle is protected.

Some noteworthy global IoT regulations already in effect include:

The EU Cybersecurity Act and the European Telecommunications Standards Institute ETSI TS 103 645 technical specification are currently leading the charge in European standard frameworks on cybersecurity controls for digital products and services, including consumer Internet of Things (IoT) devices.

In the USA, the IoT Cybersecurity Improvement Act of 2020 is a key milestone in securing IoT by establishing minimum security requirements for federal procurement of IoT devices. Additionally, it requires NIST to publish guidelines and standards on the management and use of IoT devices.

In the UK, the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS)’s Code of Practice for Consumer IoT Security includes 13 guidelines for IoT devices aimed at protecting consumer privacy and safety and simplifying their secure use.

Best Practices and Strategies to Manage IoT Risks

While more regulations are being implemented around the world, no universal global or industry standards or requirements for Internet of Things (IoT) security currently exist. Nevertheless, your business network and information assets are still at risk. It is imperative that you proactively implement additional preventive security controls to block unauthorized access to your IT network and protect customer data or business IP connected to IoT devices.

Adopt Ongoing or Regular Risk Assessments

Every business using IoT should conduct a thorough risk assessment to identify and address any security gaps that could expose its network environment and systems to cyberattacks. A Business Impact Analysis will also help evaluate and measure the potential impact of disruption or downtime stemming from a data loss or breach incident — as well as identify which of your business-critical operations or processes need the most priority.

Establishing ongoing risk assessments and impact analyses as standard parts of your business operations is the best way to maintain strong cybersecurity defenses. However, these should be performed at least annually. You can determine the frequency of these assessments based on the unique risks/needs of your business.

Keep an Inventory of Your IoT Devices

One of the most important best practices for ensuring the safety of your Internet of Things (IoT) environment is to maintain an up-to-date inventory of all IoT devices on your network and those connected to any remote or mobile devices. Make a point to manually check for security patch updates on all devices, but leverage automation whenever possible. Integrating a solution that helps you discover, manage, and monitor all systems and endpoints, including IoT devices, will increase visibility and enable better control of your business infrastructure and security posture.

Implement Principles of Least Privilege and Zero Trust as Standard Policy

Implementing the principles of least privilege and zero trust ensures that the right users have only the minimum access and permission settings necessary to perform their job responsibilities. It also ensures that no internal or external threat actor can take control of your network or IoT devices using compromised credentials by exploiting a user with excessive privileges within your organization. This is a good security practice to follow in general since it provides layered chokepoints for a hacker trying to establish a backdoor foothold.

Provide Thorough and Frequent Security Awareness Training for Users

The human factor has always posed a challenge for IT and data security. However, while employees can be a significant weak point in cybersecurity systems, a frequent and comprehensive user training program can prepare your entire workforce to become your secret weapon against cyberthreats. Regular training on a variety of IT security and data protection topics will equip your users with the knowledge and confidence to be more cautious and vigilant in their daily activities, thereby reducing your overall risk and vulnerabilities.

Prioritize Security & Data Protection in Your Business

Loss of private customer data or business-critical data can result not only in major operational disruptions but also in reputational damage and even loss of customers. That said, doing your part to ensure the integrity and confidentiality of the data collected, processed, and stored by your IoT devices is vital to long-term success.

Given the speed at which IoT is penetrating our everyday lives, it only makes sense to ensure that your business and its users follow best practices to keep your IoT environment protected against emerging cybersecurity risks and threats.

Get in touch with us today to find out how we can help secure your IoT environment.