As organizations expand their IT footprints, they become more vulnerable to cyberthreats and therefore business risk. Just one well-placed cyberattack can result in data or software damage, breaches of customer information, theft of intellectual property and business interruptions, with the damage rippling out into their supply chain, impacting on compliance with regulators, corporate reputation and revenue streams.

Third parties complicate the risk landscape even further. When organizations trust their facilities, networks and/or data to outside suppliers and partners, they open themselves up to potentially devastating financial, reputational, regulatory, operational and strategic consequences.

What happens if a hacker breaches a SaaS partner’s or cloud vendor’s systems — and compromises the organization’s customer data? Responsibility for risk management falls on the organization. IT and risk teams can never assume that a third party is taking the necessary steps to mitigate threats.

In short, as threats to internal and external IT assets intensify, organizations must stay ahead of these risks, with a strategic plan for risk identification, mitigation, remediation and recovery.