How to Manage Digital Risk

The following steps outline a digital risk management framework with a specific focus on mitigating cybersecurity and data leak risks:

Step 1: Identify All Exposed Assets

Map your digital footprint: Identify every asset that could be accessed without authorization, including social media channels and places where sensitive data is stored. Use attack surface monitoring solutions to pinpoint your critical assets at risk, such as customer and employee data, health and financial information, Shadow IT, and cloud platforms.

Step 2: Monitor for Data Leaks

Implement a data leak detection solution to spot any leaks linked to your organization. This will offer insights into potential vulnerabilities. Addressing data leaks promptly protects against cybercriminals targeting your organization for data breach campaigns.

Step 3: Keep Risk and Threat Models Updated

With a clear digital footprint, gather threat intelligence data to model your specific threat landscape. Regularly review and update your incident response, business continuity, and disaster recovery plans to enhance cyber resiliency. Refresh your threat model and review security policies annually at a minimum.

Step 4: Secure Access to All Exposed Resources

Protect privileged accounts and digital assets to avoid reputational damage. Broaden detection parameters beyond traditional defenses to block unauthorized access. Implement Zero Trust Architecture (ZTA), use honeytokens to detect unauthorized attempts, and enhance Privileged Access Management (PAM) for internal access control, reducing insider threat risks.

Step 5: Keep Vendors Compliant

Mitigate the financial and cybersecurity risks of non-compliance, which can lead to regulatory fines between $14 million and $40 million. Extend monitoring to your vendor network to identify and fix security vulnerabilities. Ensure all vendors undergo thorough security evaluations with a third-party risk management solution to maintain compliance through specific risk assessments.

Following these steps, focusing on proactive monitoring, updating risk models, securing access controls, and ensuring vendor compliance, will strengthen your organization’s defense against digital risks.

Digital Risk Management (DRM) is a comprehensive approach for identifying, assessing, and addressing risks associated with digital assets and operations in an organization. It’s aimed at protecting against digital threats like cyberattacks, data breaches, and system vulnerabilities, while also ensuring compliance with relevant regulations and standards.

The first step in DRM is to identify all digital assets within an organization, such as websites, data, applications, and systems. Once assets and threats are identified, the next step is to assess the potential risks these threats pose to the digital assets. Based on the risk assessment, organizations then develop and implement strategies to mitigate identified risks. This can involve a range of actions, including strengthening cybersecurity measures, implementing access controls, encrypting sensitive data, and developing incident response plans. DRM also involves ensuring that digital operations comply with relevant laws, regulations, and industry standards