The Role of Cybersecurity in Enterprise Risk Management (ERM)
As businesses continue to undergo digital transformation, cybersecurity must be included in the enterprise risk management framework. Without a comprehensive ERM program that addresses various risks – such as strategic risks, operational risks, and security risks – organizations are limited in their ability to effectively identify and assess potential business risk
By adopting a holistic approach, risk managers and senior management across complex organizations can align on strategic goals Integrated risk management is now the preferred method for chief risk officers, business stakeholders, and company leaders as it helps balance risk appetite across all risk categories.
What is enterprise risk management (ERM)?
Enterprise risk management (ERM) is the process of identifying and understanding the risks that threaten standard business operations. This ongoing process involves risk professionals and company culture to establish corporate governance and cyber enterprise risk management policies that protect the business. Examples of direct risks include natural disasters affecting assets, while compliance risks or legal risks may stem from unmet regulatory requirements.
In order to manage risk successfully, you must have a complete understanding of everything happening across your organization and any external factors that may impact it.
Why is cybersecurity important to enterprise risk management?
It’s important to know that cybersecurity is a problem that will never be solved, but rather, a risk to be managed. In the digital age, cyber risk has become an issue for the entire business, not just the tech or IT department.
Cybersecurity represents an entire risk profile that businesses must continuously address, as cyber threats are persistent and pervasive. Cyber risk management cannot only focus on compliance but must align with strategic objectives to achieve business performance and meet regulatory compliance. Addressing security risks requires understanding how these risk exposures impact the entire business. Leaders can focus on risk through data-driven decisions to achieve operational risk management and secure their business model.
By examining risks from a business perspective, executives can make decisions that prioritize protection and operational success.
Leadership and Ownership
Effective enterprise risk management relies on visible support and active participation from senior management, which sets the tone for risk management efforts. When leaders champion ERM, they set a clear tone from the top, strengthening the culture of risk awareness across a wide range of functions and ensuring business strategy aligns with risk management processes.
When you have a strong ERM program and evidence-based data from SSC, you’re all speaking the same language and are more aligned. It sets the standard internally and creates harmony with stakeholders.
This commitment also empowers security and business teams to coordinate effectively, ensuring that risk management practices directly support the organization’s objectives and resilience against cyber threats.
Advantages of including cybersecurity in your enterprise risk management (ERM) program
The argument for an enterprise risk management program has already been made. The challenge now is to convince your executives that cybersecurity should be included in the ERM planning process.
Let’s take a look at three advantages of working cybersecurity measures into your enterprise risk management program:
1. Align more closely with strategic business objectives
Cyber risk management programs are often built around meeting compliance standards and regulations, which can make it difficult to align with the needs of the business. By making cybersecurity a business issue, security and business leaders can create an ERM that more accurately serves the greater goals of the organization.
2. Focus on the risk profile unique to your organization risk strategy
With emerging technologies designed to increase efficiency, each organization’s ERM program should be unique to serve their specific operational needs. A business’s technology needs are not universal, and what works for one organization might not work for another. An enterprise risk management strategy tailors its risk response to each organization’s unique digital ecosystem including factors like financial risk and regulatory compliance.
3. Increased visibility and transparency
Comprehensive visibility and transparency into the enterprise makes it easier to identify connections between risks and impact, and assess the threats facing your organization. ERM’s broad view ensures security professionals can monitor issues across the entire enterprise, achieving a complete picture of risk that supports rapid, coordinated risk response.
How to get the most out of your enterprise risk management (ERM) platform
Many organizations already have the information required to create a business context within an enterprise. Initiatives like meeting compliance standards, business continuity, disaster recovery, and data protection work together to highlight threats and their potential impact. The problem arises when organizations try to efficiently manage all of that data and turn it into actionable intelligence.
A cyber risk management platform can help facilitate this process by putting all of the data necessary for risk evaluation in one place, making it easier to identify connections between threats and predict the scope of impact.
Here are a few best practices to keep in mind when looking for an enterprise cyber risk management platform:
Continuous monitoring and reporting
For enterprise risk management to be truly effective, continuous monitoring and real-time reporting are essential. This approach enables organizations to maintain a clear, up-to-date view of potential cyber threats and their impact, allowing for rapid response to new and emerging risks. By integrating real-time visibility, organizations can ensure a proactive stance in their ERM efforts, identifying risks early and making swift adjustments to mitigate them before they escalate.
Quantification and measurement
Quantification is key when building an enterprise risk management program. You cannot manage what you don’t measure, so you must be able to quantify the cyber risks facing your organization in terms of definite numbers, figures, and percentages. The data should be jargon-free and simple to understand so that the entire C-Suite and stakeholders can easily review relevant insights and ensure everyone is aligned.
Use all data
An enterprise risk management program that does not take advantage of all available data will not be as successful at mitigating risk. When information is separated into silos, it can lead to unexpected threats or an underestimated exposure to risk. Aggregating all of the data allows for maximum visibility and enables security managers to highlight opportunities and connections across the enterprise.
Effective comparisons
Comparing your organization’s risk management program to those of your competitors can give you a better understanding of its efficacy. This way, you can deep dive into any issues that may be affecting your industry and better prevent them from impacting your business operations.
Leverage threat intelligence
An ERM platform should empower organizations to proactively address cybersecurity and utilize all available threat intelligence, both past and present, to identify threats and other malicious activity. By understanding what has and hasn’t worked before, and what risks are common within your organization or industry, you can create a strong, informed foundation to build your ERM program off of.
Manage your third-party vendors
Most organizations rely on third-party vendors to carry out day-to-day operations, so it’s important to consider the additional risk that they may pose to your network. Your ERM platform should help you to identify any low performing vendors and make risk connections across groups of companies. This will allow you to actively manage third-party risk.
How SecurityScorecard can help with enterprise risk management (ERM)
A cyber risk management platform should combine all of the data necessary for building an effective enterprise risk management program, including both business and IT sources. SecurityScorecard platform supports a robust ERM platform designed for risk professionals seeking a holistic approach. SecurityScorecard utilizes security ratings, threat reconnaissance, compliance standards, and vendor risk assessment to provide risk managers with everything they need to make important connections within the enterprise, between risk and impact.
This helps security managers prioritize vulnerabilities and provides them with the insights needed to determine the next steps. A data-centric approach to enterprise risk management creates a common ground for executives and security managers that encourages collaboration across the entire organization.
