26 March 2018
About this blog: As the GDPR approaches, organisations need a better grip on the risk of information leakage via third parties. Based on findings from a recent Sales Filter CxO Round Table event, held at the Royal Exchange, Northdoor believes that its solution for mapping the supply-chain ecosystem addresses some of the key challenges around the GDPR and is in tune with the expectations of senior executives.
Focusing on data
With General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), organisations face the challenge of understanding not only how they themselves manage sensitive data, but also how trading partners (and their partners, and so on) manage any shared data. Many organisations have an extended supply chain spanning a complex web of relationships and dependencies that makes it extremely difficult to get a full, clear and timely picture of risk exposure.
Here at Northdoor, we recently hosted a CxO Round Table event for senior business and IT decision-makers across multiple industries, looking specifically at the GDPR and similar challenges in the area of data risk management and compliance. Following a presentation of our 360-degree risk assessment solution – which uses machine-learning techniques to determine cyber risk exposure across several degrees of relationships – a lively Q&A session provided a great opportunity to discuss the challenges that C-level execs are facing.
There was general agreement on the need for data risk to be managed by a cross-functional team rather than being restricted to the IT department. There was also general support for the idea of an externally accredited ‘partner security rating’ along the same lines as a credit rating and in addition to ISO27001. Our risk assessment solution supports both of these ideas, offering a highly visual interface that empowers non-specialists to understand data risk, and creating an ecosystem in which companies can share information about the security-worthiness of their partners and clients.
Our managed security solution supports both of these ideas, offering a highly visual interface that empowers non-specialists to understand data risk, and creating an ecosystem in which companies can share information about the security-worthiness of their partners and clients.
360-degree view
Attendees at the Round Table agreed that manual assessments of data risk across the supply-chain ecosystem are out of date almost as soon as they are created, and that they are open to manipulation and inaccuracy. We showed how our solution automates the discovery and analysis of security risks among third parties (and the ongoing chain of partners they work with) to give a real-time 360-degree view of data risk.
Based on feedback from attendees, we also took the opportunity to explain how the AI component of the Northdoor solution works – in particular, clarifying that it’s based on machine-learning techniques and so requires a little time to bed in to each client’s environment.