What is GRC? and How it Empowers Cyber Security

GRC is directly linked to compliance and risk but it also has a vital link with cybersecurity.

What is GRC?

GRC is a combined approach towards governance, risk, and compliance, aided by information technology. GRC combines these three factors because changing business dynamics and technologies require these three factors to be in sync. Information security is an important part of new regulations and organizations are required to have a framework to keep their own and their clients’ data secure. In such a scenario, compliance becomes an important part of governance. Every compliance and governance issue directly increases risk. Organizations have thus started ensuring that governance, risk, and compliance are all progressing in the same direction.

How GRC and Cybersecurity intersect

Since cybersecurity is such an important factor in governance there are many different areas where GRC and cybersecurity intersect.

Data Privacy

Data privacy is one of the main drivers in increasing the importance of GRC in cybersecurity. Over the past few years, there have been extensive regulations and new strategies applied all over the world for data privacy. The General Data Protection Regulation in the EU is the most notable such case, but similar approaches are being taken all over the world when it comes to IT security. America also has extensive regulation when it comes to data privacy.

There have been many notable breaches of privacy and they have sparked a demand for better regulation and security. Just in 2018 87 million Facebook accounts were breached, 150 Million MyFitnessPal accounts were breached, and the Aadhaar data breach in India gave access to confidential information of almost 1.1. billion citizens. Introducing better data protection approaches is thus now important to governments, which means organizations must brace for more regulatory requirements for cybersecurity.

Risk

The link between cybersecurity and risk should not be ignored. Cybersecurity risks are an important factor in the overall risk exposure of the organization. Any organization that does not have sophisticated data security measures in place will not be able to manage risk. Organizations risk losing customer trust and future business due to these breaches. Heavy fines are also levied on organizations by governments and class action lawsuits are always a threat.

The New Approach

Organizations need a better approach when it comes to cybersecurity. One solution is to understand the importance of GRC knowledge for people in charge of cybersecurity. Cybersecurity personnel in the financial industry are required to know the legal and regulatory requirements of their organizations, and the same approach needs to extend to other industries as well. The role of the head of IT must be made more prominent. IT leaders need to be educated and enlightened about legal and regulatory requirements because many of their tasks are now directly associated with risk and compliance.

Simply training employees is not enough – they also need to be given the right tools for their new role. A GRC cybersecurity platform is important for organizations that are only now bringing together cybersecurity and GRC. The platform will make the transition into the new model smoother and will also aid the employees. IT cybersecurity is too complicated and too important to be managed manually – it needs to be monitored and tracked automatically to ensure nothing is amiss.

Cybersecurity attacks get more sophisticated with every passing day. There are attacks currently possible which cannot be stopped by any firewall or antivirus software. The right approach towards cybersecurity is the only thing that can stop such attacks. Cybersecurity GRC makes the whole business process more secure. Antivirus software and firewalls can catch the viruses and attacks that are coming in through vulnerabilities in the IT infrastructure, but GRC can eliminate these vulnerabilities altogether.

If you want to see what grc tools can do for your organization, get in touch with us and we will arrange a live demo of Predict360 for you.

About the company

360factors, Inc. (Austin, TX) helps companies improve business performance by reducing risk and ensuring compliance. Predict360, its flagship software product, vertically integrates regulations and requirements, policies and procedures management, risks and controls, audit management and inspections, and on-line training and qualifications, in a single cloud-based platform based on artificial intelligence.

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