Cybersecurity in Business Processes
Data breaches, financial losses, regulatory penalties, reputational damage and system downtime can result from operational disruptions in cybersecurity.
One of our clients was a US-based healthcare organisation providing digital record keeping and processing of medical data. Due to the growth of data such as patient medical records, the company approached us with a request for a comprehensive audit. The goal was to identify potential issues in their business processes and ensure compliance with updated cybersecurity requirements.
We began by analysing the company's business processes by studying documentation, interviewing management, development and support teams, and reviewing the application architecture and inter-departmental communication. By combining these approaches, we were able to assess not only the cybersecurity processes, but also the effectiveness of communication between departments. In addition, the audit included a review of the application code, allowing us to thoroughly examine authentication/authorisation, cybersecurity testing and communication with third-party services.
- New government regulations
- National Security Strategy
- Company processes (documentation, meetings, etc.)
- Architecture
- Cloud
- Network security
- Code, frameworks, packages
- Continuous Integration (CI) and Continuous Deployment (CD)
- Authentication/Authorization (organizational structure, roles, accesses, policies)
- Started to introduce the concept: Incident Response Plans (IRP)
- Social engineering (emails, messaging apps, etc.)
- Penetration testing
- Cybersecurity training
The results of our audit revealed several issues that affected not only cybersecurity, but also the overall efficiency of the business. Problems were identified with business processes and their automation, which hindered employee collaboration and, in some cases, led to inaccurate reporting to management. This in turn led to poor decision making. In addition, outdated and incorrect third-party services were discovered, which posed a threat to the company's cybersecurity posture and resulted in unnecessary costs. We also found that several employees had excessive access rights that were being misused.
The technical report included recommendations for improvement, such as implementing cybersecurity mutation testing, ensuring compliance with modern cloud security standards, and strengthening authentication/authorisation mechanisms.
- Cybersecurity Business Report
- Detailed Cybersecurity Technical Report
- Business Process Improvement Plan
- Company Security Strategy Roadmap
- Audit & Implementation
The client was incredibly impressed with the work we completed, as they did not expect a Cybersecurity audit to uncover issues within their processes, expose data misuse and reduce costs in their business operations. The company also achieved HIPAA compliance, reducing the risk of fines and loss of customer confidence. By implementing an Incident Response Plan and improving its monitoring tools, the company was also better prepared for potential future threats.
Risk management
It helps to assess not only cyber risks, but also operational risks, such as poor change management or unpreparedness for incidents that can disrupt business operations.
Inefficient processes
The audit can identify bottlenecks and inefficiencies in business processes that can reduce the overall performance of the company.
Management issues
An audit can reveal weaknesses in information management, poor data control and employee misuse of company data.
