Utilizing Dynamic Cyber Risk Assessments

Today, more organizations are focusing on the security of their digital assets as data breaches and cybersecurity threats continue escalating.

According to IBM Security and Ponemon Institute, the average data breach cost is a whopping $4.45 million.

Thus, robust cybersecurity measures are essential to protect your organization’s digital assets. Conducting dynamic cyber risk assessments is also a fundamental component of data security.

Although preparing for every vulnerability and operating a 100% risk-free organization is daunting, it’s not impossible.

Dynamic cybersecurity risk assessments can help you identify vulnerabilities in your company’s security posture, allowing you to allocate resources to mitigate them efficiently.

What Is a Dynamic Risk Assessment?

Dynamic risk assessment (also known as dynamic application security testing/application) combines penetration testing, code security, and vulnerability scanning elements to analyze the security of web applications, systems, networks, and other digital assets.

Here, cybersecurity teams adopt the role of stimulated cyber criminals and expertly analyze the system’s defenses by thoroughly testing its vulnerability to potential threats. By doing that, dynamic risk assessment helps you determine how secure your data and web applications are and identify areas that need improvement.

This risk assessment process helps organizations better understand their digital environment and future risk scenarios. It makes risk management more sustainable, inclusive, and beneficial for all. It also elevates risk assessment processes from static “must do” exercises to a level that invites resource allocation, scenario modeling, responsibility, prioritization, strategy formulation, and execution.

Dynamic risk assessments are tailored to individual organizations, starting from the formulation of the risk lists and descriptions through to the decision of the intervals and scales, the data input, and the final output results.

It leverages advanced research and science in network theory and complexity alongside digital tools to produce accurate and intuitive outputs. Outputs from a robust dynamic risk assessment provide the following insights:

• The threats that are expected to spread to each other
• The most beneficial opportunities in the future risk environment
• The speed at which potential threats will impact an organization
• The high severity, low likelihood scenarios needed for scenario modeling
• The potential risks that should be delegated to middle or senior management

What Are the Four Points of a Dynamic Risk Assessment?

1. Identifying assets and determining their importance to the organization

The first step in performing a dynamic cyber risk assessment is identifying your organization’s digital assets. Digital assets include systems, data, networks, and workforce. Considering electronic and physical assets is crucial when performing a dynamic risk assessment. After identifying your organization’s assets, the next step is establishing the value of those assets. This analysis should consider the likelihood of losing an asset and the impact of loss of an asset. By determining the importance of various assets, you can prioritize their protection.

2. Identifying security gaps and vulnerabilities

A vulnerability is a weakness that hackers can exploit to gain access to your networks, systems, and data. Common vulnerabilities include insecure APIs and interfaces, insufficient security controls, weak passwords and encryption keys, and a lack of authentication controls. When performing dynamic cybersecurity risk assessments, you must consider all your systems and networks' potential flaws and vulnerabilities. You can take appropriate measures to mitigate the potential risks by identifying every possible vulnerability.

3. Identifying potential risks

Once you have identified your organization’s assets and vulnerabilities, the next step is determining the potential risks that may exploit those vulnerabilities. Cybersecurity risks can come from many sources, including software flaws, weak passwords, and malicious actors. Common cybersecurity threats include malware, denial of service, phishing, and ransomware. When performing a dynamic risk assessment, you must consider all the potential hazards that may affect your company. By identifying all potential threats, you can take appropriate measures to mitigate those risks.

4. Establishing potential impact

After determining your company’s physical and electronic assets, vulnerabilities, and potential threats, the next step is to identify potential impacts of losses. The impact of a loss can be grouped into three types:

• Integrity: The unauthorized modification of sensitive information.
• Confidentiality: The unauthorized disclosure of confidential information.
• Availability: The denial of access to data.

You must consider the potential impact of a loss in terms of availability, integrity, and confidentiality of information that allows you to take appropriate measures to respond to and mitigate potential risks,

A dynamic cyber security assessment can give you a clear picture of your organization’s risk exposure. If you recognize any of the above symptoms, don’t hold off conducting a dynamic cyber security assessment any longer.

RiskRecon by Mastercard helps businesses enhance their risk assessment processes and general security posture. We offer one of the market's most elaborate risk assessment tools by leveraging dynamic cyber risk assessment and industry expertise. We will also provide actionable insights into your company’s risk environment, allowing you to make educated decisions about your cybersecurity strategy. 

What’s the Difference Between Dynamic and Static Risk Assessments?

Cybersecurity professionals perform static assessments in a non-runtime landscape. Static application security testing is an evaluation process that looks at apps from the inside out. This assessment process is performed without executing programs but rather by analyzing the byte code, source code, or app binaries for signs of cybersecurity vulnerabilities. The control paths and application data are modeled and tested for security vulnerabilities in the static assessment process. Static testing focuses on the internal structure of the app instead of functional assessment.

Dynamic assessment adopts the opposite technique and is enforced while an application operates. Dynamic application security testing analyzes an application from the outside in--by testing it in its operation state and manipulating it to discover cybersecurity vulnerabilities. Further, dynamic application security testing stimulates cyber attacks against a web app and tests its reactions, establishing its vulnerability to cyber threats. 

Click this link to learn more about dynamic vs. static assessment. 

Why Is a Dynamic Risk Assessment Important in Cybersecurity?

Dynamic cybersecurity assessment is crucial in improving the integrity and safety of systems and sensitive data. With the ever-increasing reliance on technology in most aspects of our daily lives, the need for secure systems and applications has never been greater. A recent report shows that cyber attacks will cost organizations and individuals approximately $10.5 trillion annually by 2025. This underscores the need for conducting dynamic cybersecurity assessments to prevent and mitigate the impact of cyber crimes. 

Further, as cyberattacks become increasingly complicated, dynamic cybersecurity risk assessments have become crucial for enhancing web application security. They stimulate real-world hacking efforts and help uncover potential threats and vulnerabilities. This allows organizations to address potential risks before they can be exploited by proactively analyzing their cybersecurity and improving overall security posture to safeguard sensitive data and other digital assets.

Regular dynamic risk assessments help organizations stay ahead of potential cybersecurity threats and contribute to the ongoing development of secure networks, systems, and apps. Organizations can ensure resilient and stable digital environments for their customers and stakeholders by continually assessing and improving their cybersecurity measures.

What Are the Requirements of Dynamic Risk Assessments?

Dynamic cyber risk assessments actively engage with programs, systems, networks, or web applications already operating by simulating attacks to identify potential security gaps. They link up with virtual environments that only aim to poke holes into a system or network’s security.

The primary requirements of dynamic application security testing include the following:

• Scanning: This process identifies access points and accesses your systems, networks, data, and application’s overall security posture. Dynamic risk assessment's first requirement is to scan the target system, network, or web application. This encompasses identifying all the system’s elements, including APIs, forms, and URLs.
• Runtime testing entails observing a program’s behavior while it’s in operation. This technique helps cybersecurity teams identify vulnerabilities and flaws that may go unnoticed during static testing or code review.
• Cyberattack simulation: The dynamic cyber risk assessment must also imitate actual cyber attacks by submitting queries to the system, program, or application and trying to find vulnerabilities. This includes CSRF, XSS, cross-site scripting, and SQL injection testing for common software vulnerabilities. 
•  Reporting is the final requirement of an effective dynamic risk assessment tool. An effective dynamic cyber risk assessment tool must generate a thorough report based on the test results, including details of the potential threats found and suggestions for fixing them.

Are Dynamic Risk Assessments Mandatory?

By encouraging cybersecurity professionals to identify threats as they arise, dynamic cyber risk assessments enable organizations to respond appropriately and make quick decisions. Although not mandatory, dynamic risk assessments allow cybersecurity teams and organizations to assess risks in real time and maintain a safe digital environment for themselves and their customers.

They offer a framework for accurately discovering, evaluating, and mitigating cybersecurity threats. This fosters a culture of digital safety and equips employees with invaluable skills to analyze unforeseen potential hazards and take appropriate action. 

What Are the Benefits of Dynamic Risk Assessments?

Although most risk assessments, like generic, quantitative, and qualitative risk assessments, focus on a moment in time, dynamic cyber risk assessments focus on continuous analysis and response. 

Cybersecurity teams benefit immensely from conducting dynamic risk assessments. With dynamic risk assessments, you can constantly track emerging threats, analyze their impact in real-time, and mitigate them as quickly as possible. Dynamic cybersecurity risk assessments should supplement any other risk analysis process you have. 

Dynamic risk assessments also enable a complete evaluation of your organization’s security posture by scanning and analyzing its digital landscape in real-time.

• They enable enterprises to evaluate how their networks, systems, and web applications would react to potential threats in the real world. Dynamic risk assessments leverage automation tools to mimic hackers to find vulnerabilities and security flaws in digital assets.
• They are a fantastic option for routine security testing because they’re simple to use and configure. Dynamic testing differs from advanced security testing because it doesn’t need much scripting, coding skills, or experience.
• They generate in-depth conclusions and reports that help cybersecurity teams and developers better understand and resolve potential risks.

What Does Dynamic Testing Measure?

Dynamic testing analyzes code’s dynamic behavior in a program or software. In this type of security assessment, you give an input and get an output as per the expectation by executing a test case. You can test cases through an automation process or manually, and you must compile the software code and run it for each test case.

The primary purpose of dynamic cyber risk testing is to validate software or programs and make sure they operate correctly with no faults after installation. In a quick overview, you can say dynamic testing measures the overall performance and functionality of the software to ensure it’s consistent and stable. 

How Can Dynamic Testing Help Strengthen My Cybersecurity System?

Dynamic testing takes a different approach from traditional security testing methods. Rather than relying solely on manual penetration testing or static assessment, dynamic risk assessments actively scan and test apps, networks, systems, and data in real-time, identifying flaws and vulnerabilities as they occur. This proactive approach ensures quick detection and mitigation of potential threats, lowering the likelihood of successful cyber breaches.

Dynamic testing also provides options for periodic monitoring that traditional security testing methods usually do not. It immediately examines an app or software alterations and upgrades for flaws using routine assessments and scans.

Thanks to dynamic testing, your digital assets will remain secure even as new cybersecurity threats emerge. Thus, adding dynamic testing to your cybersecurity arsenal provides a dynamic and proactive approach to securing your data, networks, systems, and apps. It will also enhance your organization’s security posture, protect sensitive data, and offer a secure digital environment for stakeholders and customers. 

Further, cybersecurity experts have established that a systematic, dynamic assessment of cyber risks that automatically discovers emerging risks and suggests appropriate mitigation measures is crucial. Without the need to start from scratch every time things change, dynamic testing facilitates effective risk management and prioritization processes. 

When it comes to cybersecurity, many factors are likely to change randomly. A dynamic cyber security assessment would essentially reassess the threat as soon as there’s a change in any of these areas:

• Changes in risk exposure of third-party service providers and the extended supply chain
• Changes in data systems, including deletion, modification, or introduction of new digital assets
• New threat intelligence on known risks
• Zero-day vulnerabilities that are already being exploited in the wild
• The efficacy of current security controls and new opportunities to apply security patches or execute new security measures

When any of the above elements in the digital landscape or information systems change, you should update the inputs in your risk analysis to reflect that state, generating new results that help analyze the overall cybersecurity risks in your organization. 

How Can RiskRecon by Mastercard Help Me? 

Maintaining cyber security in today’s complex threat environment requires dynamic security techniques; thus, you must integrate dynamic cyber risk assessments into your cyber security strategy. Dynamic cyber risk assessments provide a thorough and realistic analysis of app, network, system, or data security by simulating actual hacking attempts, allowing cybersecurity teams to detect vulnerabilities and proactively take appropriate response and mitigation measures. 

Incorporating dynamic risk assessment into your organization’s security plan will enhance security posture, safeguard confidential data, and create a secure digital environment for stakeholders and users.

When conducting dynamic cyber risk assessments or any other risk assessment, the skilled team at RiskRecon can help you. We can help you quickly discover, analyze, and mitigate cybersecurity risks facing your organization. For more, check out our 30-day trial here.