Cybersecurity tips and advice Archives - MAPGENESYS Inc. https://mapgenesys.com/category/cybersecurity-tips-and-advice/ Delivering Transformation Innovatively Wed, 15 Feb 2023 15:13:12 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.8.11 https://mapgenesys.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/mapgenesys-favicon.png Cybersecurity tips and advice Archives - MAPGENESYS Inc. https://mapgenesys.com/category/cybersecurity-tips-and-advice/ 32 32 Protecting Your Business: Expert Tips for Creating a Comprehensive Cybersecurity Strategy https://mapgenesys.com/expert-tips-for-comprehensive-cybersecurity-strategy/ Wed, 15 Feb 2023 14:45:35 +0000 https://mapgenesys.com/?p=4814

Protecting Your Business: Expert Tips for Creating a Comprehensive Cybersecurity Strategy

In the digital age, cybersecurity threats are becoming increasingly sophisticated and widespread. Cybercriminals are constantly finding new ways to exploit vulnerabilities in business networks and steal sensitive data. According to a recent report by Cybersecurity Ventures, cybercrime is expected to cost the world $10.5 trillion annually by 2025. With these figures in mind, it's clear that creating a comprehensive cybersecurity strategy is no longer optional - it's essential for the survival of any business.

Conducting a Thorough Threat Assessment

The first step in creating a comprehensive cybersecurity strategy is to conduct a thorough threat assessment. This involves identifying the specific types of cyber threats that your business is most vulnerable to. According to a survey by Cybersecurity Insiders, the top three cybersecurity threats faced by businesses in 2021 are phishing attacks (66%), ransomware (54%), and malware (53%). By understanding these threats, you can develop a plan to address them and minimize your risk.

Developing a Risk Management Plan

Once you've identified your specific cyber threats, the next step is to develop a risk management plan. This plan should outline the steps you'll take to mitigate each type of threat, as well as the measures you'll take to prevent them from occurring in the first place. According to a survey by Deloitte, the most common cybersecurity measures implemented by businesses in 2021 include firewalls (86%), antivirus software (85%), and access controls (82%).

Securing Your Network and Data

Another key aspect of a comprehensive cybersecurity strategy is network and data security. This includes securing your company's IT infrastructure, such as servers, routers, and switches. According to a report by Statista, the global cybersecurity market is expected to reach $248.26 billion by 2023. This indicates the growing need for businesses to invest in network and data security measures such as encryption, access controls, and incident response plans.

Educating Your Employees

Employee training is another important part of a comprehensive cybersecurity strategy. Many cyber-attacks are the result of human error, such as clicking on a phishing email or using a weak password. According to a survey by KnowBe4, 96% of cybersecurity breaches are caused by human error. By training your employees on best practices for cybersecurity, you can reduce the likelihood of these types of incidents. Some training topics might include password management, email security, and social engineering awareness.

Ensuring Compliance with Regulations and Standards

Compliance is another important consideration when developing a cybersecurity strategy. Depending on your industry and the types of data you handle, you may be subject to certain regulations and standards, such as HIPAA or PCI DSS. Ensuring that you are in compliance with these requirements is an essential part of protecting your business from legal and financial consequences.

Managing Vulnerabilities

Finally, vulnerability management is an ongoing process that is essential for maintaining the security of your business. This involves regularly scanning your network for vulnerabilities and weaknesses, and taking steps to address any issues that are identified. According to a survey by Ponemon Institute, the average time to identify a data breach is 228 days, and the average time to contain it is 83 days. By actively managing your vulnerabilities, you can reduce the impact of any potential breaches.

The cost of a cyber-attack can be devastating for a business, not only in terms of financial losses but also damage to reputation and customer trust. By investing in a comprehensive cybersecurity strategy, you can protect your business and give yourself and your customers peace of mind.

With cybercrime on the rise, it's more important than ever for businesses to prioritize cybersecurity. According to a report by Varonis, there were 5,258 data breaches in 2020, resulting in the exposure of 8.4 billion records. The total cost of cybercrime is expected to reach $6 trillion by 2025. These statistics show that cybersecurity is a critical issue for businesses of all sizes and in all industries.

In addition to the financial and reputational costs of a cyber-attack, businesses can also face legal consequences for failing to protect sensitive data. For example, under GDPR regulations, businesses can face fines of up to 4% of their global annual revenue for non-compliance with data protection rules. This highlights the importance of ensuring compliance with relevant regulations and standards when developing a cybersecurity strategy.

In conclusion, cybersecurity is a critical issue that every business must take seriously. By conducting a thorough threat assessment, developing a risk management plan, securing your network and data, educating your employees, ensuring compliance with regulations and standards, and managing vulnerabilities, you can reduce your risk of cyber-attacks and minimize the impact of any incidents that do occur. With cybercrime on the rise, investing in a comprehensive cybersecurity strategy is no longer optional - it's essential for the survival of your business.

]]> Third-Party Risk Management https://mapgenesys.com/third-party-risk-management/ Fri, 07 Oct 2022 13:45:49 +0000 https://mapgenesys.com/?p=4402

Contents

What is Third-Party Risk Management?

Third-Party Risk Management (TPRM) is the process of identifying, analyzing, and reducing the risks associated with the third-party vendors/suppliers

Every organization engages third-party to deliver products and services. These vendors can range from few to hundreds to thousands depending on the size of the organization and nature of products and services they offer. Their services and products are needed for day-to-day operations that helps these organizations to deliver back to their clients to manage their markets.

Every vendor carries a potential risk profile while delivering such products and services. Management in most organizations would assume a higher level of security that comes with it. However, no vendor can escape from being a victim of Cyber Attacks, Data Exploits, and other Breaches, Unless the vendor truly understands the security within.

Most organizations are struggling with their TPRM/VRM/SRM Program, as they do not fulfil the activities critical to operations in the areas of vendor risk profiles, compliance, and quality benchmarking (Assessments). The products/solutions as provided by Vendor/Supplier/Third party has some form of weakness which remains underestimated.

How can We Help You?

mapgenesys can help corporates and SMB to overcome risks that’s not addressed completely, even if you’re managing risks internally. mapgenesys solutions would help you to gain more insight and have a centralized visibility into risks that concerns more. mapgenesys Accelerates a Unified Third-Party Risk Program which integrates with GRC functions and IT Assurance services.

mapgenesys’s Supplier/Third-party risk management program has been designed to an organization of all fit (size and ecosystem). We help our clients to build an efficient and effective Third-party relationship so that your leadership can trust and benefit from the exchange of services/products without any business interruptions, without any risks and minimizing the scope of any potential breach.

mapgenesys help clients resolving critical challenges around Supplier/Third-party risk in the areas of Regulatory Compliance, Governance, Operations, Legal and Financial and Technology risks. mapgenesys Solutions help bridge GAP between the Supplier/Third party and our clients. mapgenesys Provides RAAS (Risk Assurance as Service), where we assess and understand your existing vendor risk portfolios and Risk landscape and help you design a process to manage all vendors centrally, then in a distributed environment with automation as and where needed.
mapgenesys has designed effective TPRM/SRM solutions that help our clients benefit from less risky supplier/Third-Party partnership. We provide a unified solution that’s tied with the centralized management process that are robust, repeatable, and flexible enough to grow with your business.

Third-Party Risk Services

  • We are the interface between our clients and their Vendors
  • We assess and evaluate our client’s security objectives, compliance & Internal controls, and Risk appetite (the assessment is mapped back to the vendor assessment to understand if the vendor meets the client’s security requirements)
  • We identify the scope and requirement of the product/service and initiate the vendor security assessment process (Pre and Post assessment process; based on the vendor profile)
  • We complete the due diligence process (Risk Information: SOC II report, Pen Test Reports, Security Questionnaire, Disclosures, etc.) and provide a detailed analysis and recommendations
  • All Risks as identified will be monitored and tracked for risk remediation measures with process enhancements as needed
  • We provide vendor risk profile summary at a high level to better engage vendors based on Business/strategy changes
  • We integrate and unify various Industry standard and regulatory frameworks to keep our client’s business compliant and safe from cyber incidents (attacks, exploits, breaches, etc.)

Benefits of Third-Party Risk Management

  • Management has visibility in their vendor’s risk profile which results in better informed decisions that relate to new and emerging technologies
  • Manage time and save cost on resources and infrastructure
  • Avoid/Minimize Operation, Legal threats, Regulation actions, Reputation/Brand issues, Data and Security compromises, financial losses, etc.
  • Always stay compliant with various regulations and standards

Our array of Services

Importance of TPRM as a Service

Most Organizations, Markets and Governments always face the heat of growing Cybersecurity Malicious activities and incidents. We all know the worst cyber-attacks of 2021 that were experienced by SolarWind, Microsoft Exchange, REvil, Colonial Pipeline, Kaseya, Microsoft's (Print)Nightmare and Log4.

We don’t know who would be next, but we can help you to avoid such unforeseen and unfortunate situations.

Third-Party risks should be a point of great concern. Most organizations do not have the capacity to fulfil the Due-Diligence process on their Vendors. One risk will breach the foundation of the organization that attracts loss of Brand reputation, penalties and more. Third-Party risks can be accounted based on the evaluation areas of Regulatory Compliance, Operational, Legal, Strategic, Financial Risks and Cyber Security events.

Governance Risk and Compliance (GRC) Program

mapgenesys will bring value to your business with the array of GRC and IT Assurance services.

GRC – IT Assurance Services

mapgenesys’s Unified Governance, Risk and Compliance Services (GRC) program offers a complete range of IT Audit, Risk and Compliance Assurance Solutions that are tailormade for different industry verticals across small, medium, and large organizations/Enterprises.

We provide these solutions based on the organization’s size, culture, business, sector, geographical presence and spread and relevant regulatory requirements as applied.

mapgenesys Can overcome the challenges an Organizations/Enterprise faces:

  • Overcome the need to optimize ROI arising from the IT Assurance program
  • Overcome Resource/skill shortage as needed to deliver IT Assurance Program
  • Overcome Distributed domain specialist support. (Support Audit reviews and IT Controls for Internal and Vendor/Third Party Risks)
  • Overcome Compliance with specific regulation/Legislation/standards with reference to IT Controls
  • Overcome Risk and Compliance risks from Emerging Technology and Infrastructure changes
  • Overcome IT Assurance program with Acquire/Merged Organizations

GRC – Enterprise Risk Management

mapgenesys’s Unified Risk Management establishes an effective risk framework across enterprise-wide with standards and methods for risk identification, assessment, management, and reporting while supporting the risk program to meet the critical and unique needs of our clients.

mapgenesys Accelerates a unified risk program, validating current security posture and risk landscape to understand so that we can build and provide secure and reliable solutions that not only saves cost, but time and effort.

mapgenesys has also been delivering Cybersecurity and TPRM Advisory services over a decade now. Our team of consultants can quickly Assess and build unified control library while doing Internal risk assessments and Audit assurance services/projects.

GRC – Risk-Audit Assurance Services

mapgenesys’s has developed interrelated and unified approach which revolves around Risk-Audit, Compliance, Controls and Assurance Services. We bring in solutions that protect and strengthen every business from people process and technology.

mapgenesys help clients with the design and implementation of IT risk, Vendor Risk and IT Controls to safeguard businesses involving complex and emerging technologies risk landscape. We help you overcome your challenges and risks as underestimated and undefined in the areas of shadow IT processes.

mapgenesys is prepared and equipped to resolve risks revolving around “Digital Solutions”. Every business prefers automation so that all processes can be aligned without a margin of error. However, if the automation does not meet the logic and the purpose, it would deviate and would result in creating risks that may go un-noticed.

FAQ

Third-Party risk management primary goals is to manage the overall risk associated with conducting business with Client suppliers/vendors by utilizing the following methods:

  1. Identify, Categorize and Prioritize Third Party/Suppliers/Vendors
  2. Perform TPRA using Central questionnaire database as available
  3. Monitor and track identified risks (including periodic re-assessments as needed). This is a part of due diligence process
  4. Communicate findings to Business owners and Third Party/Supplier/Vendor
  5. Project Dashboard reporting to the Management
  6. Reduce Risks to Client and their Customers
  1. Vendor/Supplier who handle PII or generally Sensitive Data (ex; Intellectual Property (IP), Financial data, HR application/support vendors, etc.).Vendor/Supplier that develop custom software or hardware for Client/Third-party manufacturing companies
  2. Vendor/Supplier with access to our network/systems
  3. Vendor/Supplier performing work at third-party/offshore locations
  4. Cloud service providers
  5. Contingent Workforce Suppliers (CWS) and consulting companies
  1. Minimize exposure and losses for both Client and our customers
  2. Ensure our compliance with various regulations and standards such as PCI, GDPR, ISO2700X, NIST, etc.
  3. Enable the business to make informed decisions
  4. Tracking and monitoring third-party/suppliers/Vendors, helps mitigate and manage Information Security – privacy related risks. This is important due to risk factors such as:
    • Recent increased threat from hackers, ransomware/malware, and global threat actors
    • The proliferation of the use of new, cutting-edge technologies (ex: Cloud)
    • New regional laws and regulations based around cybersecurity and data privacy

TPRM framework consists of:

  1. Due-diligence process by providing vendor questionnaires
  2. Reviewing security responses and mapping to security controls
  3. Review controls concerning policy, procedure, and standards
  4. Assessing vendors based on security ratings and external disclosures

Advancement of emerging technologies to meet future demands and scalability has left organizations with challenges on how to address third party risks who acts a key spoke in their technology delivery. Underrated risks arising from Vendors (Third Party) exposes revenue loss.

  1. Risks over data security and integrity for vendors/Third party’s having remote access within or beyond geographical boundaries
  2. Risks over vulnerabilities and threat landscape in vendor’s environment and map any dependencies with their sub-contracting parties
  3. Non-Compliance against Regulatory Audits and compliance attestation and Certification through inadequate assessments and activities performed
  4. Process not aligned/mapped with different control frameworks. Lack of skilled resource to manage and monitor the risks on vendors/Third Party’s
  5. Lack of awareness and training in a multi network vendor activity and not limited to scope of policies, process people and technology
]]> AWS Cloud Security Issues: What You Need to Know https://mapgenesys.com/aws-cloud-security/ Thu, 12 May 2022 10:56:42 +0000 https://mapgenesys.com/?p=1816

You can’t secure what you can’t see! With unique cloud opportunities and benefits, some challenges come with having AWS as your cloud platform.

While the concerns and issues vary widely from company to company and industry to industry, are we prioritizing a Security Strategy ahead of controls and tools?

As the ecosystem and cloud environment gets larger so do the security risks. Misconfiguration, insecure interfaces, and unauthorized access topped the list.

The over whelming digital transformation and consumerization of IT has created an explosion of data and applications in the cloud. But this rapid proliferation of applications, services and moving workloads to the cloud comes with the risk of unmonitored access, security loopholes and data leaks.

Poor visibility into an organization’s cloud usage is a major security challenge prompting many enterprises to reassess and adjust their security posture to suit the dynamic nature of cloud environments. It has been found that an average enterprise invests in 32 different cloud security tools at high cost.

But that is not all, finding qualified cybersecurity expertise is another top challenge for companies battling the shortage of cloud security skills

Each business must be able to answer the following key questions:

  • Who has access to which applications and when?
  • How can we monitor for key file changes?
  • Will we be notified promptly when something anomalous occurs?
  • Do we have strong password policies and authentication practices?
  • What are the Compliance Controls?

AWS SECURITY RISKS:

A recent global Cloud Security Report released by Check Point and Cybersecurity Insiders shows that the top cloud security threats are unauthorized cloud access (42%), insecure interfaces (42%), misconfiguration of the cloud platform (40%), and account hijacking (39%).

AWS security is not fail-safe and operates on a Shared Security Responsibility model. This means that Amazon secures its infrastructure while you have your own security controls in place for the data and applications you deploy and store in the cloud.

According to RedLock’s research, the average lifespan of a cloud resource is two hours and seven minutes. With multiple cloud accounts and regions, it is highly difficult to detect risks with decentralized visibility. 85% of resources associated with security groups don’t restrict outbound traffic at all.

Administrators often forget to disable root API access. The exposed applications structure requires you to strengthen existing security controls. This includes continuously updating your security configurations with sufficient patching, strong firewall configurations, and proper network security implementations.

AWS S3 buckets are now exposed via additional channels and APIs, which create new security blind spots that hackers are waiting to exploit.

Issues with AWS infrastructure configuration based on the research done by ScienceSoft:

  • AWS Firewall Manager.
  • Identity and access management (IAM) controls.
  • Logging and monitoring tools (Amazon GuardDuty, CloudWatch, and CloudTrail used to implement an efficient SIEM solution as part of a comprehensive AWS monitoring approach).

These AWS infrastructure components may have the following typical misconfigurations:

  • Disabled multi-factor authentication for AWS services.
  • Amazon CloudTrail is not configured to log the API call history of key AWS services.
  • Wide-range permissions for S3 buckets, public cloud storage resources.
  • IAM accounts are set up as a single point of access to multiple resources.
  • Broad access ranges for AWS Security Groups.
  • Startup and configuration scripts containing authorization info.
  • Public AWS AMIs (Amazon Machine Image) containing proprietary or sensitive data.
  • Machine state snapshots placed in public storage.

mapgenesys's layered, and in-depth Cloud Security Services offer 24x7 real-time monitoring of applications, devices and servers in the cloud, in short, complete visibility of all security events to minimize vulnerabilities in your cloud infrastructure.

Our Cybersecurity Practitioners, Professional Services (PS), and Security Specialists, and DevOps teams can improve monitoring, compliance, and response with centralized control of all cloud workloads and IaaS, PaaS, container, and virtual environment. Our team conducts penetration testing as part of our security testing services.

mapgenesys's Recommendations and best practices for AWS security:

  • Think of security at every layer. Make sure that every activity is traceable and that you manage privileges meticulously
  • Be sure to encrypt every piece of sensitive data that you store in or transmit over your AWS environment.
  • Unified, comprehensive security across public, hybrid, and multi-cloud environments give you control over cloud configurations, application and API security management, and access controls, as well as monitoring data in transit, in use, and at rest.
  • Establish the proper identity and access management by setting up appropriate permissions.
  • Effectively locate security vulnerabilities using cloud security assessments
  • Monitor and Audit Server access logs and Cloud watch metrics
  • Harden AWS setup using CIS and DISA-STIG benchmarks

As a part of our Managed Cloud Security services, we leverage AWS native tools like Security Hub, Trusted advisor, Route53, WAF, Kinesis, GuardDuty, CloudTrail, CloudWatch, Macie, MFA, Inspector, DDOS mitigation, IAM, Data Encryption and Infra security to provide holistic AWS cloud security.

Our cloud security experts are constantly available to discuss your company’s needs and goals for seamless security.

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