Cybersecurity Risk Management: Frameworks, Plans & Best Practices

The relentless surge in cyberattacks, coupled with increasingly stringent regulatory demands, has led to unprecedented consequences. The global cost of cybercrime is expected to increase from $8.44 trillion in 2022 to $23.84 trillion by 20271. Most organizations are overwhelmed with an exponentially growing attack surface, thanks to cloud adoption, WFA and BYOD initiatives, and the rise of IoT. Consequently, cyber risks are also growing out of control, necessitating ongoing cybersecurity risk management.

Cybersecurity risk management is a strategy for proactive identification, analysis, and mitigation of potential threats and vulnerabilities associated with an organization’s digital assets and internal network. Cyber threats can involve data breaches, malware attacks, insider threats, phishing scams, and more. They can jeopardize the confidentiality, integrity, or availability of corporate data, which is the lifeblood of modern enterprises. The goal of cybersecurity risk management is to protect an organization’s sensitive information from all kinds of cyberattacks and implement measures to minimize the associated risks and ensure business continuity.

The success of cybersecurity risk management hinges on meticulous planning, cybersecurity frameworks, and industry best practices for protecting organizations against known and emerging threats from all kinds of threat vectors.

Creating an Effective Cybersecurity Risk Management Plan

A comprehensive cybersecurity risk management plan provides a structured framework for identifying, assessing, mitigating, and managing cyber risks across the organization. It serves as a roadmap for aligning cybersecurity processes and initiatives with business objectives. Below are all the critical steps that should be a part of a robust cybersecurity risk management plan:

1. Identify All Assets: Identify and catalog all exposed assets, including hardware, proprietary and third-party software, services, and internal and external users.
2. Identify Cyber Risks: Based on business objectives and context, identify potential threats, attacker TTPs, and vulnerabilities within the organization’s systems, processes, and controls. Threats include external threats like cyberattacks and internal threats like malicious insiders and employee errors. These threats can exploit vulnerabilities like software bugs or inadequate access controls to breach the corporate network or data.
3. Analyze Risks: The next step involves assessing the likelihood and potential impact of identified cyber risks. While doing so, it’s important to go beyond cost calculation to consider the legal, reputational, and operational consequences of a potential exploit. Based on the analysis, organizations must prioritize risks depending on their risk appetite and the severity of consequences on business continuity, bottom line, and compliance.
4. Implement Risk Mitigation Strategies: After risk identification and prioritization, organizations must decide on appropriate measures and controls for risk mitigation. They may include technical controls, patches, security policies, employee training programs, and following cybersecurity best practices.
5. Create an Incident Response Plan: Even after applying all mitigation strategies, residual cybersecurity risk is often inevitable. An incident response plan details the procedures and protocols an organization must follow in the event of a cyberattack or breach to mitigate its impact and ensure rapid recovery.
6. Continuous Improvement: Cybersecurity risk management is an ongoing and dynamic process that must evolve in response to changes in processes, technologies, threats, and regulations. In addition, a comprehensive cybersecurity risk management plan must include mechanisms for enabling a continuous feedback loop, allowing for continuous improvement based on lessons learned.

Frameworks for Cybersecurity Risk Management

Several cybersecurity risk management frameworks provide organizations with a structured and standardized approach for effective and comprehensive risk management. Some popular ones include:

1. NIST Cybersecurity Framework (CSF)
   The NIST CSF provides standards, guidelines, and best practices for organizations to manage and improve their cybersecurity posture. The framework is built around six core functions —identify, protect, detect, respond, recover, and govern. Combined, they provide a comprehensive framework for addressing cyber risks.
2. ISO/IEC 27001
   ISO/IEC 27001 is a well-known standard for managing information security. It outlines requirements for security controls and guidelines for establishing, maintaining, and improving Information Security Management Systems (ISMS). Accredited certification to the ISO/IEC 27001 standard is globally recognized and demonstrates an organization’s commitment to cybersecurity, boosting its reputation and competitiveness.
3. CIS Controls
   CIS Controls provide a comprehensive best-practice guide for organizations to improve their cybersecurity posture and mitigate common cyber threats. There are a total of 18 actionable safeguards that provide practical recommendations for deploying and maintaining effective security controls across various IT environments. CIS controls align perfectly with frameworks like NIST and ISO 27001 and are proven effective against many pervasive attacker TTPs.

Best Practices in Cybersecurity Risk Management

Here are a few best practices that are critical to effective cybersecurity risk management.

1. Choose a Risk Management Framework
   There are quite a few cybersecurity risk management frameworks to choose from and some even have multiple companion frameworks, such as the ISO 27000 series of standards. Different frameworks may cater to different industries and risk types. For instance, PCI DSS pertains to the payment card industry, HIPAA targets healthcare, and SOC2 is primarily for third-party service organizations. Organizations can select multiple frameworks to achieve comprehensive coverage for their unique regulatory and industry-specific needs. These frameworks provide a structured approach to identifying, assessing, and mitigating cyber risks.
2. Involve all Stakeholders
   Cybersecurity risk management extends beyond security teams to involve everyone from executives to employees to external users. It demands a well-coordinated, unified approach in which all teams across the board operate with clearly defined roles and expectations. To achieve collaboration, organizations must establish well-defined communication channels and processes. Regular security awareness training is also imperative for ensuring everyone understands their roles and responsibilities in addressing cybersecurity risks.
3. Use Attack Surface Management (ASM) Tools
   Organizations’ attack surfaces are expanding exponentially, necessitating Attack Surface Management Tools for comprehensive risk assessments across all known, unknown, internal, and external assets. Without a robust ASM tool, managing risks associated with cloud, remote users, BYOD devices, and third-parties can be daunting since they are outside the organization’s typical security perimeter.
4. Leverage AI/ML-based Analytics
   Given how attack surfaces are expanding and cyber threats are becoming increasingly sophisticated, manual cybersecurity practices and processes simply do not cut it anymore. Organizations need to harness AI and ML-based analytics for enhancing and automating risk identification, assessment, and response. AI/ML algorithms can help in establishing baseline patterns and swiftly detecting anomalies and deviations that can be indicative of a cyberattack.
5. Implement a Defense-in-Depth (DiD) Strategy
   A Defense-in-Depth (DiD) strategy employs multiple layers of security defenses, ensuring that if one layer fails, other defense layers remain intact. Effective risk management should involve preventive, detective, and corrective controls. Preventive controls like pentesting and red teaming exercises can identify vulnerabilities before they are exploited, whereas detective and corrective controls can identify and mitigate attacks in progress.

Bolster Cybersecurity Risk Management with BreachLock

BreachLock’s portfolio of cybersecurity validation and exposure management solutions can enhance your cybersecurity risk management strategy, enabling comprehensive coverage and effective management. BreachLock’s Attack Surface Management identifies and prioritizes risks across both internal and external attack surfaces. With years of experience across various industries, BreachLock’s AI-powered risk assessment is based on a vast collection of testing data, comprehensive threat and vulnerability intelligence, and real-world context for precise risk prioritization.

In addition to ASM, BreachLock delivers comprehensive Pen Testing as a Service (PTaaS), automated penetration testing, and Red Team as a Service (RTaaS). You can readily integrate insights from BreachLock’s testing exercises into your risk management process for optimal risk mitigation to minimize impact, make swift decisions, and allocate resources efficiently. Schedule a discovery call and get in touch with BreachLock’s experts today!

About BreachLock:

BreachLock is a global leader offering human-delivered, AI-powered, and automated solutions for Attack Surface Management (ASM), Penetration Testing as a Service (PTaaS) and Automated Pentesting (APT) and Red Teaming as a Service (RTaaS). Collectively, these solutions go beyond providing an attacker’s view of common vulnerabilities and exposures to provide enterprises with evidence-based risk across their entire attack surface to determine how they will respond to an attack.

Know Your Risk. Accelerate risk prioritization and remediation accuracy across the entire security ecosystem with BreachLock.