Why does risk mitigation contribute to business continuity?

By Cristiane Santos. Nowadays, the increase in the volume of data available to companies is remarkable. According to IBM, the world generates approximately 2.5 quintillion data points, with 90% of these generated in the last three years. However, data alone is not enough to generate business intelligence. It is crucial to establish […]

May 15, 2023 4 min read By: Skyone

By Cristiane Santos.

Nowadays, the increase in the volume of data available to companies is remarkable. According to IBM , the world generates approximately 2.5 quintillion data points, with 90% of these generated in the last three years. However, data alone is not enough to generate business intelligence. It is crucial to establish adequate governance to ensure that data is available, integrated, and, most importantly, secure.

Data security, in turn, deserves special attention, as just one "breach" can fatally harm business success. A study by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) , which compares the volume and complexity of security risks over the years, indicates in its most recent study that 6 out of 10 companies report a significant increase in these risks.

In this sense, cybercrimes have emerged as a consequence, growing by 144% in the state of São Paulo alone in 2022, according to data from the Public Security Secretariat (SSP) . This information reinforces the growing concern about the dangers, especially technological ones, that a company can face. Therefore, knowing the types of risks and ways to mitigate them is essential.

The types of risks for a company

Risk is a combination of the probability of a given event occurring and the impacts – positive or negative – that it may generate. Unfortunately, in many cases, risks remain hidden and unknown, leading some companies to neglect critical factors.

Currently, the most common security risks are: Compliance Risk, which refers to the violation of external or internal laws, regulations, and standards, such as the LGPD ( Brazilian General Data Protection Law); Legal Risk, which represents a specific form of compliance risk, occurring when an organization fails to comply with the rules established by the government for businesses; and Strategic Risk, which arises as a result of a flawed business strategy or a lack of adequate strategic planning.

Furthermore, there is also Reputational Risk, which encompasses corruption and ethical violations, negatively impacting the company's standing as well as public opinion about it. And finally, Operational Risk is related to a company's daily activities, such as the right to privacy, information leaks, system intrusions, fraud, among other situations.

Despite their distinct types, these risks complement each other and generate negative consequences for businesses, such as fluctuations in profits, damaged reputation, loss of control over systems or data, damage to infrastructure, and breach of SLAs. In these cases, risk mitigation offers techniques that reduce their levels to a level tolerable for the business.

Risk mitigation techniques

Security management, which encompasses risk identification, implementation of controls, monitoring, and incident management, is one of the main actions a company must take to ensure effective risk mitigation, in order to comply with ISO 27001 (standard for information security management systems) and the General Data Protection Law ( LGPD ), ensuring the conformity and security of information.

The main techniques to be applied by organizational security management today are, first and foremost, the training and awareness of employees, who are known to be major vulnerable entry points for intrusions and data leaks.

Other techniques, just as important, include vulnerability scans of platforms, constant phishing tests, endpoint security – such as controlling technological access and cautious use of USB drives – and corporate governance, which exposes a vision of the danger and helps in expanding organizational and technological maturity.

Finally, investing in an incident management process, which covers everything from registration to communication with the client, is essential to understanding the impacts and ways to handle any dangerous situation, consolidating the mitigation of security risks in the company and contributing to greater reliability and scalability of the business.