Cyber Risk Quantification: Discover 9 CRQ objectives
Cyber security has become an absolute priority for businesses of all sizes and in all sectors, as the number and complexity of cyber attacks increase. However, simply reacting to threats is no longer enough. To truly protect themselves, businesses need to adopt a proactive and strategic approach to cyber risk management. This is where Cyber Risk Quantification (CRQ) comes into its own as an indispensable tool.
CRQ enables organisations to accurately assess their financial exposure to cyber risks, providing a solid basis for making informed cyber security decisions. This discipline makes it possible toimprove a company’s defensive maturity through judicious investment in security, optimise the underwriting of cyber insurance policies, and better manage risks at a strategic level.
This quantification process is not limited to a simple technical assessment of vulnerabilities. It also incorporates a business perspective, aligning cybersecurity objectives with the company’s operational and strategic priorities. By providing clear, quantified visibility of risks, the CRQ helps management to identify strategic ‘nodes’ and focus their efforts where they will have the greatest impact.
In this article, we take a look at nine key objectives of CRQ, illustrated by real-life examples from our experience with a range of clients. From initial risk exposure assessment and investment optimisation to cyber insurance effectiveness evaluation and third-party risk management, we’ll explore how quantifying cyber risk can transform risk management and strengthen your organisation’s resilience to digital threats. How can CRQ become a strategic lever for your business?
1: Gain high-level visibility of your risk exposure
Quantifying cyber risk can be used to quickly understand the exposure of an organisation or one of its subsets (business unit, geography, etc.) to cyber risk. This makes it possible to identify the main strategic ‘nodes’ and focus efforts and resources on reducing the risk.
Thanks to this use of the CRQ, you have two choices for continuing your quantification journey: take the first step towards sharing the risk, in particular by teaming up with your insurer to find the cover best suited to your exposure and roadmap or give the business lines visibility of the risk to link them to the company’s business vision. This objective is not a prerequisite, but it is a good step if you want to quickly obtain metrics for understanding your exposure to cyber risk.
2: Carry out a risk assessment to identify priority areas for improving safety
Once the strategic points for controlling exposure to cyber risk have been identified, a roadmap needs to be drawn up, setting out the security measures appropriate to the company. For this, quantifying cyber risk, as practised using the Citalid platform, can be very useful and can be used in two ways.
Firstly, if a roadmap has already been drawn up, the CRQ can be used to confirm or deny the relevance of the choices made for the current year.
Secondly, if a roadmap has not yet been put in place, the CRQ is an invaluable aid in its design, as it helps you to make informed decisions about your cybersecurity strategy for the years to come.
3: Carry out a risk assessment to make my investments profitable (ROSI)
Investments in cybersecurity cannot escape the question of profitability, even if they differ in nature from other types of investment. This is why the concept of ROSI (Return on Security Investment) has emerged. All cybersecurity processes use human resources, and the efficiency of a time-consuming process needs to be proven, especially as many companies are faced with a cost-cutting approach to IT and security.
How do you prove the efficiency and cost-effectiveness of a safety process? The CRQ can be used to meet this need. By putting as much data as possible into the Citalid platform, it is possible to obtain indicators to prove the effectiveness of previous safety programmes.
4: Carry out a risk study to assess the effectiveness of your insurance
More and more businesses are taking out cyber insurance, but very few are aware of the effects of risk sharing. How do we know whether our cover is really appropriate for our exposure to cyber risk?
The CRQ helps companies to take residual risk into account when making decisions, particularly when managing their appetite for cyber risk. Thanks to Citalid, you can visualise the impact of your insurance policy.
With this information at your fingertips, it’s easier to integrate insurance into your cyber security strategy.
5: Carry out a risk study to negotiate/optimise your policy (optimise insurance premiums, add risk transfer options)
This objective, which is much more decision-oriented, is aimed at both users who have insurance and those who do not. It will help you prepare for the negotiation phase, in a discussion with your insurer or broker.
The actionable indicators provided by the quantification of cyber risk give users a better understanding of their exposure, enabling them to play an active role in choosing the insurance cover that suits them best.
6: Conducting a business-oriented risk assessment
The quantification of cyber risk uses threat scenarios tailored to the company’s exposure. How can we identify the elements impacting the organisation’s economic activity according to the situations exposed by each scenario?
The Citalid platform provides an answer to this question and measures the concrete impact of cyber attacks on business. Based on data from the company’s past experience (strikes, technical problems, etc.), it is possible to estimate the cost of business interruption or simply the factors that could disrupt the company’s activity, using reliable, quantified indicators.
This phase involves the business teams as stakeholders in the company’s risk management, while avoiding the pitfall of a technical analysis. It brings the business lines and the decision-making teams closer together in terms of risk management within the organisation.
7: Carrying out a risk study to assess the impact of stakeholders
Suppliers and service providers bring their vulnerabilities to the companies they work with. Quantifying cyber risk is an aid to Third Party Risk Management, because it takes into account the diversity of the company’s interconnections. In this way, it is possible to visualise the impact that an attack targeting a third party would have on the company, and to factor this information into the Board’s decisions.
8: Aligning cyber risks with other risk practices
Quantifying cyber risk does not mean deconstructing everything that has already been built, but rather building on what is already in place while adding new elements. The CRQ therefore helps to strengthen your cybersecurity strategy while providing you with new information about your company’s exposure, so that you can make informed choices.
9: Assessing the threat level of your environment
The cyber threat is not a threat like any other, because it depends on both internal and external factors. While the vulnerabilities of the company’s information system obviously need to be taken into account, other internal factors also need to be considered carefully: vulnerabilities in the IT infrastructure, identity and access management, and the level of awareness among employees of cyber hygiene measures. As far as external factors are concerned, we cannot claim to have a reliable representation of the risk without examining the geopolitical context in which the company operates, depending on its sector of activity, and the tactics used by cyber attackers to target economic players.
Citalid is the only cyber risk quantification solution to take into account both the internal and external factors of the cyber threat, thanks to the expertise of its team specialising in cyber threat intelligence (CTI). More than 700 cybercriminals are studied by the analysts and more than 5,000 events have been recorded on the platform since 2013.
In this way, the threat level of the company’s environment is taken into account in the recommendations put forward by Citalid, to enable managers to make informed decisions.
Quantifying cyber risk serves several purposes. Would you like to find out more? Register here for our next Live Demo session, where an expert will show you what the Citalid platform can do for your business and answer all your questions in 30 minutes.
You are convinced by CRQ and want to know how to get the most out of our solution? We invite you to (re)read our article on the keys to success in quantifying cyber risk.
