Why Cyber Risk Quantification (CRQ) is More Compelling Than Ever Before
Nowadays Cybersecurity Leaders have to be experts in both technical and business matters to help stakeholders understand the organization’s cost of a cyber-attack or the cost of a data breach.
Equipped with data-driven insights, cybersecurity leaders can allocate resources and prioritize remediation efforts based on how much the organization stands to lose if they don’t address particular gaps in the cybersecurity program.
A recent IBM study highlights this challenge for cybersecurity leaders: Position cybersecurity similarly to other business initiatives and deliver Cyber Risk Quantification (CRQ) insights in financial terms.
Significance of Cyber Risk Quantification in 2022
The cost of a data breach has been steadily increasing over the past few years. It spiked upwards during the pandemic, in particular. Working remotely has increased the average overall data breach cost by around 137,000 dollars.
Since the cybercrime market is not going anywhere anytime soon, cybersecurity professionals worldwide must mobilize to increase their visibility into their cybersecurity systems. Cyber Risk Quantification has emerged as a promising method to combat cyber threats and breaches. Here’s how current cybersecurity methods could use CRQ:
- Ultimate Impact of Cyber Risks – Even a single unique cyber breach could lead from thousands to millions of dollars in losses in a matter of days. This fact alone has become a major source of concern for business leaders, who have started prioritizing cyber risk.
- Need For Financial Accountability – It’s not enough to measure cyber risk in qualitative terms now with reference to predicting, determining, and analyzing cybersecurity spending. IT teams must translate cybersecurity risk into financial terms.
- Inadequate Compliance – Cybersecurity compliance only provides a minimum level of security. By quantifying cyber risk in financial terms, companies can evaluate their ultimate risk and prioritize the most effective risk mitigation initiatives.
Key Benefits of Quantifying Cyber Risk
As cybersecurity becomes a top priority for the C-suite, it’s critical that cybersecurity leaders have a means of communicating with the rest of the leadership team on how to prioritize cybersecurity initiatives. CRQ reports present clear tangible facts about the cybersecurity environment and status that everyone can understand and act upon.
- Speak the Language of Your Business – Report the board members and the business in understanding the most potential financial impact of cybersecurity breaches and give the business rationale for implementing certain cybersecurity measures and related investments.
- Advocate the Value of Cybersecurity – Help key business initiatives like digital transformation, new product launches, and Merger Acquisitions by determining which cybersecurity architecture can reduce the risk to an acceptable level and cost-effectively as well.
- Prioritize & Analyze the Cyber Risks – Cybersecurity leaders can evaluate what cyber threat events represent the biggest risk to the business and what cybersecurity initiatives are the most effective in reducing the average cost of cyber attacks.
How RedMonocle Helps Organizations Manage Cyber Risk
RedMonocle Cyber Risk Quantification generates financial cyber risk reports related to business objectives, cybersecurity initiatives, and control measures. This equips security leaders with the appropriate insights to predict the cost of a data breach and address potential cyber threats that can occur. It also leverages the inputs and multiple data resources such as regulatory data, cybersecurity insurance claims, financial data, security breach reports, and health of security and threat intelligence.
When the data is applied to the cybersecurity risk model, a team receives objective, automated outputs in the following areas:
- Quantification of cybersecurity risks – identifies gaps and overages in coverage, which supports the business in making better decisions to reduce potential risks/threats.
- Prioritization of cybersecurity risks – understand risk appetite and Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVEs) by financial impact and loss exposure they represent to the business.
- Automated cybersecurity scenarios – compare the business trade-offs between cybersecurity controls and risk reduction versus the customer experience objectives.
Why Quantifying Financial Risk of Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVEs) is Important
RedMonocle identifies which Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVEs) present a substantial financial risk to the organization and prioritize patching efforts with the capability to automate cyber risk quantification (CRQ). RedMonocle also delivers a prioritized list of Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVEs) that are most critical to the business.
You can examine what cyber risks you have today while also keeping track of bigger risks as things continuously evolve and change. This dynamic priority list takes into account the current prioritized patching efforts and moves new Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVEs) with the highest financial risk and impact to the top of the list.
Who Should Perform Cybersecurity Risk Quantification?
A comprehensive approach is mandatory for addressing all areas of cyber risk vulnerability. A complete Cyber Risk Quantification should involve representatives across all departments in the firm instead of relying on a few IT or cybersecurity team members where vulnerabilities can be addressed and get fixed.
At present, organizations want to have an internal cybersecurity team to handle data breaches. But it’s challenging to hire, train, and track an internal team while they are trying to protect your environment against potential breaches.
Outsourcing to a cybersecurity partner who specializes in predicting the cost of cyber attacks is a viable option, not only for cost savings but for providing optimal security reporting. RedMonocle helps companies assess cybersecurity investments and programs relative to the amount of risk they reduce, quantifying their value and ultimately optimizing your spending over the cybersecurity technologies.
Take the steps to optimize security reporting in your organization.
