First-Party Risk Management
First-party risk management (FPRM) in cybersecurity focuses on the risks that originate from within your organization. It involves identifying, assessing, and mitigating vulnerabilities and threats that could harm your systems, data, and operations.
Think of it as managing the cybersecurity risks you pose to yourself.
Why is FPRM important?
Internal Vulnerabilities: These can include weak security controls, misconfigurations, outdated software, or even malicious insiders.
Accidental Data Loss: Employee errors, system glitches, or inadequate data handling procedures can lead to breaches or disruptions.
Compliance Violations: Failing to comply with regulations like GDPR or HIPAA can result in hefty fines and reputational damage.
Operational Disruption: System failures, cyberattacks, or natural disasters can disrupt your business operations and impact your bottom line.
Key aspects of FPRM:
Risk Identification: Thoroughly assess your IT infrastructure, applications, data, and processes to identify potential vulnerabilities and weaknesses.
Vulnerability Management: Regularly scan for and remediate vulnerabilities in your systems and applications.
Access Control: Implement strong authentication and authorization mechanisms to restrict sensitive data and systems access.
Data Security: Encrypt sensitive data, implement data loss prevention measures, and ensure secure data backups.
Employee Training: Educate employees about cybersecurity best practices, phishing scams, and social engineering tactics.
Incident Response Planning: Develop and regularly test incident response plans to ensure a swift and effective response to security incidents.
Examples of FPRM in action:
Implementing multi-factor authentication for all employee accounts.
Conducting regular security awareness training to prevent phishing attacks.
Encrypting sensitive customer data stored in your databases.
Performing penetration testing to identify vulnerabilities in your systems.
Establishing a data backup and recovery plan to ensure business continuity.
By proactively managing first-party risks, organizations can strengthen their overall security posture, reduce the likelihood of security incidents, and protect their critical assets.
ThreatNG primarily focuses on external attack surface management, and it can also assist with certain aspects of First-Party Risk Management (FPRM) by providing insights into your organization's external-facing assets and potential vulnerabilities. Here's how ThreatNG can help:
External Discovery and Assessment
ThreatNG can discover and assess your organization's internet-facing assets, such as websites, subdomains, and IP addresses. This helps identify unknown or forgotten assets that may pose security risks. The platform then assesses these assets for vulnerabilities, misconfigurations, and compliance with security policies.
Continuous Monitoring
ThreatNG continuously monitors your organization's external attack surface, alerting you to new vulnerabilities, changes in security posture, and emerging threats. This real-time visibility helps proactively address potential risks and maintain a strong security posture.
Investigation Modules
ThreatNG's investigation modules provide detailed information about your organization's domain names, IP addresses, certificates, social media presence, and exposed code repositories. This data can help identify potential vulnerabilities and security gaps that attackers could exploit.
Intelligence Repositories
ThreatNG leverages threat intelligence data to identify potential risks to your organization. This includes information on known vulnerabilities, compromised credentials, ransomware events, and other cyber threats. This data can help prioritize remediation efforts and strengthen your organization's security posture.
Reporting
ThreatNG's reporting capabilities provide insights into your organization's security posture, highlighting potential risks and vulnerabilities. These reports can communicate risk information to stakeholders and track remediation efforts.
Complementary Solutions
ThreatNG can integrate with other security solutions to enhance FPRM. For example, ThreatNG can integrate with:
Vulnerability scanners: to provide additional context and visibility into identified vulnerabilities.
Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) systems: to correlate threat intelligence with internal security events.
Threat intelligence platforms (TIPs): to enrich threat intelligence and improve risk assessment.
Examples of ThreatNG helping with FPRM:
Discovers a subdomain unknown to the security team, and assessment reveals that it runs an outdated web server with known vulnerabilities.
Assesses susceptibility to Business Email Compromise (BEC) and phishing by gathering potential data points and uncovering vulnerabilities that can be exploited, enabling you to alert employees.
Identifies sensitive data exposed in a public code repository, enabling you to take steps to secure the data and prevent unauthorized access.
Examples of ThreatNG working with complementary solutions:
ThreatNG integrates with a vulnerability scanner to provide detailed information about a newly discovered vulnerability, including exploitability and potential impact.
ThreatNG feeds threat intelligence data into a SIEM system, which correlates this data with internal security logs to identify a potential insider threat.
By utilizing ThreatNG's capabilities alongside other security tools and practices, organizations can improve their FPRM processes and reduce their overall risk profile.
