GRC, or Governance, Risk and Compliance is becoming more and more crucial to many firms’ day-to-day operations. In this article, we’ll talk about GRC and how it can support your cybersecurity system.
After a succession of high-profile business bankruptcies necessitated the need for better internal controls and monitoring in the early 2000s, the idea of a formal GRC emerged. GRC operations are likely the focus of entire departments at larger companies, especially those in tightly regulated industries like utilities, finance, and insurance; smaller companies may only have one or two persons filling this position, sometimes not even full-time.
However, more and more businesses are considering the advantages of having a recognized GRC role in-house as regulatory duties for organizations of all sizes expand. But what does GRC mean in reality? Let’s examine the abbreviation:
Simply described, governance is the process of making decisions. What factors are taken into account when a business decision is made? Are the choices made adequately in line with the mission or objectives of the organization? A meaningful foundation for a company’s activities is provided by governance.
Risk refers to elements that might endanger a company. Threats from the outside or the inside might be classified as risks. They might be insignificant or existential. They could be things you can control or things related to the environment that could occur whether or not you want them to. Not all risk is negative; businesses will have a “risk appetite” that determines how much danger they are ready to take on in different business areas. Entering a new industry, for instance, could be risky, but the benefits might outweigh the dangers.
The area of compliance includes legal and regulatory matters. The norms of conduct that an organization must abide by to exist may be established by governments, industry authorities, or even third parties.
Any organization’s security and IT operations staff will find resonance in reviewing these definitions via a cybersecurity lens. For instance:
- Risk Mitigation
- Legal, Regulatory, and Business Compliance
- Internal and External Audit support
- Data Privacy
- Response to Incidents
Each of these areas is a huge concept that deserves a separate discussion/exposure on its own. For example, falling foul of Data Privacy regulations could lead to fines and penalties from regulatory bodies behind the GDPR, the CCPA, and HIPAA (in the case of handling Personal Health Information (PHI).
We have prepared these posts to be bite-sized and actionable even for business owners new to the field. This topic is discussed in two parts and in the second part we shall go into each of these five segments in high-level detail.
Hope you learned something new and are more confident about the pillars of GRC and where to start to properly implement a Cybersecurity GRC unit in your company without spending a fortune.
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