The financial industry utilizes independent software vendors (ISVs) to augment their operations. However, organizations can face difficulties in obtaining sufficient visibility into their vendor ecosystem and critical security tools, monitoring their risk posture, and verifying that they meet their critical compliance demands.
In response to these challenges, CyberSaint wanted to give organizations the ability to gain visibility across third- and fourth-party ecosystems and automate control compliance capabilities.
Today, we are thrilled to announce that clients can now leverage CyberSaint on the IBM Cloud Security and Compliance Center. CyberSaint and IBM Cloud have a similar mission of supporting enterprises in the financial sector with real-time insights and actionable measures to mitigate risks associated with their third- and fourth-party relationships.
Independent software vendors (ISVs) are being utilized in the Financial Services industry, to facilitate data storage, real-time communication, collaboration, and connecting various teams and systems. These vendors are required to meet security requirements in the form of controls to manage risk and protect sensitive data. One challenge that some companies experience is that they must rely on attestations from their independent software vendors (ISVs) to assess risks. Some organizations lack an automated mechanism to track security updates from these vendors and correlate them with real-world threats, which can result in significant operational and financial losses.
By utilizing CyberSaint’s solution on the IBM Cloud Security and Compliance Center, CyberSaint customers can utilize automation at the control level to support real-time third- and fourth-party cyber risk and compliance management. This approach can help enable alignment to industry frameworks and standardization of security controls, centralizing risk data and giving customers the ability to manage their individual risk postures. By leveraging CyberSaint on the IBM Cloud Security and Compliance Center, controls are automatically mapped to regulatory and industry frameworks to deliver automated control and cyber risk scoring within CyberSaint’s platform.
How it works: CyberSaint’s CyberStrong platform retrieves ISV configuration posture scan (or monitoring) results through the IBM Cloud Security & Compliance Center to ascertain security and compliance posture against frameworks or control sets of choice, including the IBM Cloud Framework for Financial Services. CyberStrong utilizes the data provided by the IBM Cloud Security and Compliance Center as a compliance data point for the mapped control. Control data is then linked to associated risks in the CyberStrong Risk Register, facilitating automated third- and fourth-party risk scoring. Industry benchmark risk data is layered on top of the CyberStrong Risk Register to give companies automated and fine-tuned views into their loss frequencies, loss magnitudes, and residual risk of various third- and fourth-party threats like cloud misconfiguration, malicious data breaches, and ransomware.
A practical example of CyberSaint’s effectiveness can be seen with a Fortune 100 insurance company. The company had a manual third- and fourth-party risk management process involving 30,000 individuals with little standardization or automation for their team. Leveraging their manual processes, the company would perform over 280 ISV assessments every 12-month period, relying on a point-in-time view of their vendor’s risk and compliance posture and leaving the company exposed to significant cybersecurity risk.
By leveraging CyberSaint’s solutions, the company was able to reduce the time it took to assess over 280 enterprise vendors against their required controls from 12 months to under one month, resulting in a continuous view of ISV risk posture, significantly lowering the risk to the business, and delivering millions in cost savings. The organization now possesses real-time data to effectively monitor and evaluate risks across vendors, business units, and subsidiaries, enabling informed decision-making and fostering a culture of robust security throughout the organization and its vendor ecosystem.
With the ability to assess enterprise vendors in significantly reduced timeframes, monitor risks across the organization, and promote a culture of robust security, CyberSaint empowers financial institutions to enhance their cyber resilience and navigate the complex landscape of third-party relationships with confidence.
For a deeper dive into CyberSaint, including a live demo and value presentation, register for our webinar, “Enhancing Financial Sector Security By Streamlining 3rd and 4th Party Risk Management.”