Industries - Cloud Services
Building new business for Cloud providers
Vital Advisory have extensive experience working with both Cloud providers and their customer base.
Our unique approach to managing and advancing security and risk capabilities have assisted Cloud services providers to streamline their security management and provide assurance to clients that their regulatory obligations and customer security concerns are effectively addressed.
Understanding the Issues
Financial Services and FinTech Organisations are faced with a shifting array of challenges. Vital Advisory have worked closely with industry clients to analyse their capabilities, risk surface and security posture. These insights have helped us to develop profiles of the common issues faced by:
+ FinTech
+ Small to Medium Banking
+ Superannuation
+ Financial Advisors
Industry Challenges
Our clients seek to manage their security and risk capabilities within a context of industry-wide challenges:
+ High dependence upon Cloud and third-party service suppliers for core IT functionality
+ Both opportunities and risks from open and distributed ledger strategies, such as cryptocurrencies
+ Security questionnaires becoming a repetitive and burdensome overhead in building new partnerships and winning new business
+ Regulatory and contractual compliance obligations increasingly focus upon not just security implementation, but the entire governance approach to risk and information security
+ Customer awareness of security threats has grown and matured, so that demonstrating a proactive security posture to your customer base is essential
Negative outcomes facing Financial Sector clients
Potential negative outcomes which our clients have been concerned by include:
+ Business continuity and security risks from over-exposure to third-party providers
+ Being a high-priority target of sophisticated cyber threat actors
+ Business overheads and security risks of uncoordinated and reactive security measures
+ Snowballing compliance obligations and their related overheads
Pain Points
Our experience in the field has shown that Finance sector organisations experience common pain points in their risk and security strategies:
Ineffective planning and response to cyber and business continuity incidents
Meeting regulator and contractual security obligations
Build a single management framework to govern multiple initiatives: security, quality, privacy, resilience
Unrealised Opportunities
Not unreasonably, our clients frequently describe their focus as being the negatives of risk – security threats, compliance obligations, implementation costs – rather than seeing the opportunities which can grow from a well structured security strategy:
Security supports Business
Security objectives align with business goals
New business realised
Improved security permits a more aggressive business strategy
Focused costs
Coordinated risk response means reduced security spend
Vital Advisory’s Approach
After working with multiple clients in the sector, Vital Advisory has developed a key set of approaches to addressing the security risk and governance challenges they face:
Security aligned with Business
Just like any other function within your organisation, Security should be aligned with your business objectives. The first step in any of our engagements is a detailed analysis of your business context, so that we build a detailed picture of what you do, what business environment you operate in, your capabilities, what processes and assets matter most. Once we have a shared, clear image of your business, we can determine: where security resources are most critical; how security costs can be managed; how security can enable new business.
Structured risk processes
By structuring risk and security governance, we ensure that all the stages of risk management (identification, assessment, treatment, monitoring) are systematically applied across your organisation. We achieve this via recognised security standards, such as ISO 27001 and CPS 234. This method ensures that security is no longer a scattergun approach but targeted at the risks which genuinely threaten your organisation.
Coordinated Security Effort
Basing your security response on a governing standard, such as ISO 27001, ensures that each key security domain (IT, HR, physical, suppliers, continuity, etc.) is assessed and appropriately defended. Security becomes a whole-of-organisation concern, not just and IT problem. Gap analysis between your capabilities and those applicable from the ISO 27001 or CPS 234 standards provides an implementation map.
Streamlined Partner & vendor Management
Many of our clients are heavily reliant upon external suppliers for Cloud, IT, and software development, yet they lack depth in being able to assess the security capabilities of these vendors. We work with clients to systematically appraise the security posture of vendors and ensure that regulatory compliance in managing third-parties is accomplished.
Staff engagement – from Board to Coalface
Even in organisations with mature security capabilities there is often a perception that security is purely an IT Team problem. Our staff of experienced trainers work with each client to design a customised engagement plan which demonstrates to staff at all levels that security is a core issue which each individual can be a key player in.
Realised Outcomes
Finance industry clients of Vital Advisory have accomplished a range of enduring business benefits – from a more effective and comprehensive security capability to demonstrating regulatory compliance and reduced business overheads.
Partnerships with Vital Advisory can be one-time consultancies or ongoing As-A-Service models.
End-to-End Security Management
Security controls cover the full gamut of relevant risks and are governed and monitored throughout their lifecycle.
Board Confidence
The Board and senior management are engaged and have improved visibility into how risk and security operate.
Simplified Partner Onboarding
Complex and time consuming security questionnaires are removed from the equation of doing business.