Data security threats are evolving rapidly, and defenses against them should evolve as well. A risk assessment is a vital key to ensuring an organization is protected and well-prepared against potential threats. While there are a number of different tools and technologies that can help protect an organization from data security threats, a risk assessment is crucial to determine which defenses are most appropriate for your business. This can help you to understand the relative risk and impact of different data security threats, which will enable you to implement safeguards and take appropriate action when risks become a reality.
In order to develop a comprehensive approach to your organization’s information security program, a thorough risk assessment is essential. However, for most organizations this is a complex process that can be difficult to manage. Gartner Group recommends that organizations begin by understanding the risks they face, followed by identifying the threats that create those risks and then developing an appropriate response.
Recognizing the many different sources of risk is critical. Most security measures are designed to protect against specific types of risk.
What Is Security Risk Assessment
Security risk assessment is a process of security risks evaluation associated with mobile infrastructure, mobile devices, and mobile applications. The assessment helps detect threats and vulnerabilities from attackers, including internal/external attackers and malicious users attempting to exploit vulnerabilities in mobile infrastructure, devices, and applications. Most organizations lack the expertise and bandwidth to monitor the apps properly and implement essential security protocols to defend against potential threats. Moreover, the Compliance Regulation demands the enterprises to obey the set mandates. That’s where experienced professionals are needed to perform Mobile Security Risk Assessment as a crucial cybersecurity measure.
Reasons Why Your Organization Need Mobile Security Risk Assessment
A mobile security risk assessment determines smartphone assets and gives a list of potential applicable threats. This includes enterprise and third-party web services used by the app and other connected resources that can impact the security system. Given the portability and size of mobile devices, the main security concern is their ability to store vast amounts of information. Compliment to this the communication option provided; you have a device that opens up formidable risks to the system and information.
Let’s discuss the top reasons why your enterprise needs mobile security risk assessment.
Suspicious Apps
With any BYOD policy, you can’t limit app use for employees. The employees can easily download any app that generally requires multiple permissions. These permissions require access to multiple folders or files, and most users skip or skim them and agree without reading them. This ultimately leaves mobile devices vulnerable to the mobile security threat.
A mobile security risk assessment will help you identify which apps could expose your enterprise’s sensitive information.
Access To Data
Mobile devices have a treasure trove of options for leaked data. Most of the time, sending files via cloud storage, reading irrelevant or spam emails, accessing confidential data from unauthorized devices or gadgets, and accessing the obnoxious links is most risky for fintech/banking firms and eWallet companies.
Therefore, a mobile security risk assessment will help you determine where your information is being shared and how you can stop it if required.
Public Wi-Fi
It’s so easy to find free internet access in a public area. However, your users must understand the severity of risks associated with public Wi-Fi. With a BYOD policy, it’s possible to limit public Wi-Fi usage, but you can determine if the users adhere to the policy with mobile security risk assessment.
Steps To Perform Mobile Security Risk Assessment
Confidential Data Access
Mobile devices can access confidential data and potentially cause a leak or breach. To document which confidential data a mobile device can access, start by creating data flows according to data classifications. The admins and executives should consider: Which mobile devices can access the data and how accessible they are? Which roles need access to specific data? Outline a basic structure of security measures through these questions.
Risks Associated To Company Assets
Here, the mobile security risk assessment must focus on the threats and vulnerabilities specific to the devices employees are using. This can include shoulder surfing, device failure or loss, interrupted or intercepted communications, and malware. When vulnerabilities and threats are identified, match up to them with likelihood and impact ratings that estimate how much severe damage would occur if a threat was realized or vulnerability was exploited, as well as when they’re supposed to occur: Once a day, year, or decade? The result will be an ordered list with the most common threats or vulnerabilities and highest impact first, going down to least likely and lowest impact.
How Will Security Team Mitigate Risks
In the last step, outline how security teams plan to mitigate risks and whether or not it’s acceptable to the company. Most mitigations will take controls such as reviewing logs or installing antimalware software. For mobile devices, both soft and hard mitigations will be included. Soft mitigation involves user education programs or BYOD policy. Hard mitigations are actual environment changes, for instance, installing specific policies from Enterprise Mobility Management (EMM) or Mobile Device Management (MDM) tool.
Generally, mobile security risk assessments must include a holistic view of the company’s devices and data, input from higher-level executives, and practical goals for mitigation to ensure long-term security.
BONUS: Best Practices For Banking Apps Risk Assessment
- Banking app risk assessment includes testing/evaluating the whole mobile experience. Banking firms can control many factors, such as limiting the transaction numbers or limiting transaction amounts. The risk assessment should also verify that security encryption and certificates are working correctly.
- Risk assessments should be conducted frequently. Numerous mobile apps are rolling out daily, and some banking app developers are not security experts. For some industries, annual risk assessments are sufficient; however, banks should consider risk assessments twice or quarterly a year.
- Treat the employee’s mobile device as untrusted and insist on multiple forms of authentication, including secure site keys and passwords. Since mobile devices have built-in cameras, implement a facial recognition system for further protection. Other authentication options are fingerprint verification or GPS positioning to verify the employee’s location.
Why Financial Firms And Banking Sectors Should Invest In Security Risk Assessments
Keeping users’ assets safe is not about locking the vault’s massive door and monitoring with security cameras. The security threats are now coming from computer keystrokes and not from the masked men with guns. Handling the multi-faceted challenge of creating a successful mobile app is no simple feat, and developers are obligated to contend with pressures. It’s imperative to get a successful app built, adequately tested, and launched as soon as possible. But, in a rush to market, mobile app protection should not be overlooked.
Best practices for securing application development include secret management, sensitive data detection, automated app security tools for adherence to set security standards, business logic’s manual penetration testing, and customized correlation and orchestration of application security services and tools.
A comprehensive security risk assessment allows banking/fintech firms to:
- Identify assets such as tools, data centers, applications, servers, networks, etc., within the organization.
- Create each asset’s risk profile.
- Determine what data is generated, stored, and transmitted with these assets.
- Measure the asset’s risk ranking and prioritize for assessment.
- Assess asset criticality relating to business operations. This includes the entire effect on reputation, revenue, and the likelihood of an organization’s exploitation.
- Apply mitigating controls based on assessment results.
It’s essential to understand that mobile security risk assessment is not a one-time security project but a continuous activity that should be performed twice a year. A continuous security risk assessment will provide the enterprise with an up-to-date snapshot of risks and threats to which it’s exposed. Many risk assessment tool vendors try to bring the testing results into a single view. Instead, you should invest in a solution that provides results from various sources and tools, including threat detection, threat monitoring, and app hardening, which ultimately help detect and resolve issues quickly.
The deep penetration of apps in about every facet of our daily routine, including shopping, data storage, entertainment, communication, banking, etc., has made it significantly necessary to consider the mobile app security that interacts with the business. The fast-growing use of apps has made it obligatory for every organization and business to conduct regular mobile security risk assessments to prevent cybersecurity threats and data breaches.
Investing in security risk assessment is insufficient; choosing the wrong vendor will waste your time, money, and efforts. Before taking third-party risk assessment services, ensure that they’ll help you identify and fix security vulnerabilities and weaknesses throughout the app’s lifecycle. The proficient vendors will identify missing security controls and mitigate security flaws that increase breach risk. They’ll use both dynamic and manual analysis to provide you with accurate validation and verification of all critical aspects from access control, authentication, and handling of malicious input to session management, cryptography, and much more.
Key Benefits Of Third-Party Security Audit
- A third-party security audit will better protect your information, assets, and people’s privacy.
- Risk will be minimized through the implementation of industry best practices.
- You’ll get valuable insights into unknown vulnerabilities and potential risks associated with them.
- You’ll be assured that the security audit and risk assessment service providers are taking all the necessary steps to meet and exceed regulatory and organizational security requirements.
CONCLUSION
Mobile banking apps belong to the most security-critical application category since it renders dynamic and massive transactions making them highly susceptible to security risks. Therefore, mobile security risk assessments are most important for financial/banking firms as it provides valuable insights into where the company is not likely to succeed when applying mobile security and help you determine what controls can effectively reduce risks. Utilize third-party service providers whose experienced mobile security risk assessment experts will help you distinguish between securing the company’s data and respecting your employee’s privacy. Moreover, they can help you create advanced and effective security requirements and spend your cybersecurity budget intelligently!
