GRC is a very popular term in the enterprise security circle. However, most people don’t know to understand its meaning. In this article, we are going to give some tips that will help you in building the best GRC framework for your business.

Definition of GRC:

It is used to describe the various strategies, tools, and processes that you can use for managing your internal government. These processes will help you in managing enterprise risk management and following strict compliance.

According to CIO.com, GRC is a structured approach that will help you in aligning your IT with your business objectives. It will help you in meeting compliance requirements and managing risks.

GRC will vary according to your business. There are different regulations and compliance that companies need to follow. These factors are going to heavily influence your GRC policies.

Importance of GRC:

GRC isn’t limited to the security aspect only. It can help you in managing risk management and following most of the compliance. If you are not using the GRC framework, then it can have some of these effects on your business:

It will reduce interoperability between different teams and departments.
It will impede operations between different teams and departments.
Lead to serious data breaches due to a lack of security measures and controls.
It will lead to penalties and fines as you won’t meet critical compliance requirements.

Components of GRC Framework:

You can divide any GRC security framework into these categories:

Governance Management

It will cover all the ways that businesses are governed. This will include various components like corporate management, strategy management, and policy management.

Corporate management will help you in structuring your organization relationship. It will help you in examining different relationships. You can use it for creating an effective communication strategy.

Strategy management will help you in examining different strategies. Policy management is the set of consistent policies that you need to on a daily basis. It will help you in creating consistency across your business.

Risk management

This step will help you in identifying, managing, and assessing different types of risks. Your organization will face different risks. It is important to identify these risks and assess the impact of these risks. After that, you can focus on managing these risks.

Compliance Management

This will help you in addressing the measures that you need to follow for staying compliant. Businesses need to follow different security compliance according to their type. You might need to follow HIPAA and PCI DSS compliance. The main aim of compliance management is to ensure that you are following the relevant compliance. This will help you in avoiding unnecessary penalties and fines that arise from non-compliance.

How to build a successful GRC security framework?

You can follow these steps for creating a strong GRC framework:

Set goals for your GRC framework

You should determine the goals of adopting a GRC framework. It is important to set goals as it will help you in customizing your framework according to your goals.

Your goal might be to prevent security breaches. If you want to prevent a security breach, then you should give more priority to the risk portion. This will help you in countering and identifying your biggest risks and threats. If security compliance is your important goal, then you should pay attention to performing security audits.

Examine your current situation

You should check the procedures, tools, and policies that you are currently using. Make sure that you are assessing your current tools and procedures. This will help you in investigating your current security tools. It will help you in optimizing your existing solutions. Sometimes you can improve your security by optimizing your old solutions.

Assign Roles and responsibilities

You need to define clear responsibilities and roles in any GRC framework. If there is no strict accountability, then it will become very difficult to enforce GRC policies.

Make sure that your employees know about their roles and responsibilities. You should also create a team for ensuring that your GRC rules are getting enforced properly. Sometimes you can give this role to a dedicated GRC officer. It is important to mention their authority and responsibility. This will help you in establishing a clear communication chain that you can follow.

Test your GRC framework

You should first conduct a limited test of your framework. Make sure that your GRC framework is actually working in a real-life environment. This won’t be a feasible step for small and medium-sized businesses. However, if you have a large enterprise, then you should focus on finding kinks in your GRC system. Make sure that your GRC framework is actually working before you implement it.

Make sure that you are using the right resources

Lack of resources is the biggest issue that companies will face when they are creating their GRC framework. New GRC officers won’t have the expertise or authority to enforce your GRC plan. You might need to buy critical communication tools or software for tracking your GRC system efficiency. Sometimes you won’t have access to the critical security tools that you need for meeting compliance requirements.

It is important to ensure that you are properly testing and auditing the GRC framework. You should assess your current resources first for finding out the resources that you have.

Many organizations still can’t find security risks due to a lack of resources. MSSPs can help you in solving this problem. Experienced MSSPs like Bleuwire can help you in finding security flaws in your business. You can also hire a Virtual CISO for solving your security problems. VCSIO can help you in creating your own GRC framework. They will help you in addressing most of the security risks and issues.

Conclusion

These are some tips that will help you in creating a GRC framework. It will help you in mitigating most of the security risks. Also, it will ensure that you are staying compliant. However, SMBs will find it difficult to implement this framework due to a lack of resources. You should consider working with an MSSP. Experienced MSSPs like Bleuwire can help you in protecting your business from attackers. They will help you in creating your own GRC framework. Also, you will get access to their security team and tools. If you need more information regarding the GRC framework, then you can contact Bleuwire.

Contact us today to learn about Bleuwire™ services and solutions in how we can help your business.