As software as a service (SaaS) solutions become increasingly popular, it is crucial to securely incorporate them into an organisation’s cybersecurity framework. Of course, SaaS carries many benefits, such as flexibility, scalability, and cost-saving effects. Yet it also introduces security risks that need to be addressed.
The integration of artificial intelligence (AI) changes the in-depth financial sector. AI changes how financial institutions operate and helps them improve efficiency, security, and data-driven decisions in critical areas such as risk management and customer service. One of the most remarkable advances in this industry has been the development of intelligent software agents capable of evaluating market patterns, automating processes, and optimising real-time economic operations.
Cybersecurity isn't just an IT concern; it's a fundamental aspect of digital marketing. As marketers, we handle vast amounts of data, from customer information to campaign analytics. This data is invaluable, making it a prime target for cybercriminals.
To connect billions of devices all around the world, the Internet of Things (IoT) has brought technology to an unprecedented level of interaction with us. IoT Security has integrated itself seamlessly into everything from smart homes, wearables, and automation systems to industrial and healthcare. Nevertheless, the Cybersecurity Challenges increase with their use.
One of the main channels of communication in academia for a long time has been email. One of the primary ways that academic instructors, students, and administrators communicate with one another is through email. This includes sharing research findings among peers, working on projects with peers, sharing information globally through global networks, and more.
Remote learning has revolutionised education in this digital era, making email one of the primary channels for communication, collaboration, and information exchange. Email has quickly become an invaluable communication tool; however, with its increased use comes greater vulnerability.
Imagine this: Your back-office admin account, the keys to your iGaming kingdom, sold for a mere $10 on a dark web forum. The buyer? A cybercriminal who didn’t need to breach your network — they simply purchased your credentials from an infostealer log leaked weeks ago.
Achieving HIPAA compliance requires significant dedication and meticulous attention to detail. After all, safeguarding Protected Health Information (PHI) is non-negotiable.
Even with extensive resources and a dedicated compliance team, organizations may grapple with the lingering question: Have we truly addressed every requirement? Despite their best efforts, common missteps can leave them vulnerable to hefty fines, breaches, and reputational damage.
Organizations can inadvertently overlook crucial elements, whether it be an misconfigured technical control, an incomplete vendor contract, or an outdated risk analysis. Even the most diligent teams can find themselves unintentionally misaligned with HIPAA standards. The consequences of such oversights can be severe, leading to substantial financial penalties of HIPAA violations and reputational harm that may take years to recover from.
Understanding the common pitfalls in HIPAA compliance is essential for safeguarding both patient data and organizational integrity. Let’s explore the most common violations and strategies to mitigate these risks effectively.
A thorough, organization-wide risk analysis is the first step in identifying where your systems may be vulnerable to protected health information (PHI) breaches. Yet, time and again, organizations fail to conduct one, or if they do, it’s not as comprehensive as it should be.
Compliance Challenge: Let’s face it—performing an exhaustive risk analysis is daunting. It’s not a quick checklist; it requires resources, coordination across departments, and a deep dive into both digital and physical safeguards. For smaller practices or even larger ones with sprawling IT infrastructures, it’s easy to get overwhelmed.
Solution: Break it down into smaller, more manageable steps. Create a process that brings in multiple perspectives—IT, compliance, and even frontline staff—to ensure you’re covering all your bases. And don’t rely on a one-and-done approach; risk evolves, so your analysis should, too.
If your organization works with third parties that handle PHI, you need a Business Associate Agreement (BAA) in place. No exceptions. Failing to secure a HIPAA-compliant BAA opens you up to liability, and take it from someone who has seen this too many times, this is one of the violations that regulators see all too often.
Compliance Challenge: Tracking vendors and ensuring that every single one has a signed, updated BAA can be tricky, especially when you’re working with multiple business associates. In some cases, the agreement falls through the cracks, especially if there’s a lot of turnover or change in third-party relationships.
Solution: Implement a system that tracks these agreements—set calendar reminders for renewals, and assign a compliance officer to oversee all vendor relationships. No BAA should slip through unnoticed. It’s tedious, but the alternative is way more painful.
Improper or unauthorized disclosure of PHI is a biggie. This could happen in so many ways: emailing patient information to the wrong person, discussing patient details in public areas, or even leaving PHI accessible to unauthorized staff. These are clear HIPAA violations that can result in hefty penalties.
Compliance Challenge: The problem here often comes down to human error. Healthcare environments are fast-paced, and people sometimes take shortcuts or simply make mistakes. Training is crucial, but keeping that awareness high in the midst of day-to-day pressures is no small feat.
Solution: Regular, meaningful HIPAA training is key. Don’t settle for a quick online module once a year—incorporate real-world examples into your training so employees can relate. Frequent reminders and spot checks can also help keep PHI security top of mind.
When a PHI breach occurs, HIPAA mandates that the affected parties and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) must be notified within 60 days. Failing to meet this deadline can be a costly mistake. Time is of the essence, and the longer you wait, the steeper the penalties.
Compliance Challenge: After a breach, your team is often scrambling to assess the damage and prevent further fallout, which can make it easy to forget about—or delay—required notifications. There’s a lot happening behind the scenes when a breach occurs, and reporting can sometimes take a back seat.
Solution: Prepare for a breach before it happens. Create a breach response plan with clear notification timelines, designate key roles, and rehearse the process. This way, you’ll be ready to meet the deadline if disaster strikes.
HIPAA requires that both physical and electronic PHI be protected at all times. That means secure storage for paper records, encrypted databases for digital records, and restricted access to PHI wherever it’s housed. Leaving records exposed or accessible to unauthorized personnel is a violation.
Compliance Challenge: Often, the challenge here is not intentional neglect, but rather, outdated processes or oversight. Staff might leave a paper file open on a desk or forget to log out of a system. Even something as simple as a misconfigured security setting can expose sensitive information.
Solution: Tighten up your physical and digital safeguards. Conduct regular audits of your systems and procedures, make sure employees know and follow security protocols, and implement technical safeguards like automatic logouts and encryption across all devices. Physical security is just as important—don’t overlook it.
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HIPAA mandates that only authorized individuals should have access to PHI, yet many organizations struggle with properly managing access controls. If PHI is accessible to people who don’t need it for their jobs—or worse, to outsiders—it’s a serious violation.
Compliance Challenge: Balancing accessibility and security can be tough, especially in large organizations. Staff turnover, role changes, and the need for quick access to information can all lead to lapses in access control.
Solution: Access controls should be role-based and reviewed frequently. Use multi-factor authentication (MFA) wherever possible and make sure your systems are set up to automatically adjust access levels when an employee’s role changes or they leave the organization.
Encryption is one of the simplest ways to protect PHI, especially in digital form. Yet, many organizations still fail to encrypt their data, leaving it vulnerable to breaches.
Compliance Challenge: Encrypting data can be costly or technically challenging, particularly if an organization’s IT infrastructure is outdated. Organizations might sometimes not see encryption as necessary because they rely on other security measures.
Solution: Encryption is a must. Ensure that all devices and systems that handle PHI use encryption at rest and in transit. Yes, it might take time and resources, but the peace of mind and compliance it brings is worth every penny.
Regular audits are critical for maintaining compliance with HIPAA regulations. However, many organizations neglect this aspect, leaving them vulnerable to non-compliance and potential breaches.
Compliance Challenge: Scheduling and conducting audits can be a burden, especially when resources are stretched. Organizations may prioritize day-to-day operations over compliance, leading to gaps in their efforts.
Solution: Set a regular schedule for compliance audits involving both internal and external resources. This proactive approach can help identify weaknesses before they become larger, ensuring ongoing adherence to HIPAA standards.
Common HIPAA violations typically fall into categories such as intentional violations by employers, unintentional employee mistakes, breaches by healthcare providers, and improper access or disclosure by third parties. Violations can occur in various settings, often involving unauthorized access to PHI, careless data handling, or a lack of proper security protocols.
Employers may violate HIPAA by intentionally accessing or sharing employee health information without authorization. For example, an employer could inappropriately disclose an employee’s medical condition to other employees or fail to secure health records properly, resulting in a breach of privacy.
Unintentional HIPAA violations often arise from mistakes, such as sending PHI to the wrong person, losing unencrypted devices containing health information, or inadvertently discussing a patient’s condition in a public space. These breaches may not be deliberate, but they still compromise sensitive health information and can result in serious consequences.
Healthcare providers are bound by strict HIPAA regulations, but violations can occur when they fail to protect patient information adequately. Common issues include failing to obtain patient consent before sharing information, mishandling medical records, or improper disposal of PHI records. A provider who discards patient files in a regular trash bin rather than shredding them, for example, is violating HIPAA.
Business associates or third-party vendors who handle PHI, such as IT providers or billing companies, are also subject to HIPAA rules. Violations occur when these third parties fail to protect PHI, such as through inadequate data encryption, improper access control, or failing to know how to report HIPAA violation breaches promptly. For example, if a cloud storage provider hosting patient data is hacked and lacks the proper safeguards, it would be a HIPAA violation.
HIPAA compliance isn’t something that happens by accident. It takes a deliberate, ongoing effort to ensure that patient data remains secure and your organization avoids costly violations. By understanding the common challenges associated with compliance and addressing them head-on, you can protect your patients and your bottom line. HIPAA violations may be common, but they’re avoidable with the right strategies.
See for yourself how the Centraleyes platform exceeds anything an old GRC
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The post Common Examples of HIPAA Violations: Understanding Compliance Challenges appeared first on Centraleyes.
With so many GRC tools available, figuring out which suits your organization can be challenging.
Governance, Risk, and Compliance (GRC) platforms help organizations optimize their governance strategies, streamline risk management processes, and ensure compliance with regulatory requirements.
GRC platforms offer an integrated suite of tools and capabilities that cover areas such as risk management, policy management, audit management, compliance management, internal control management, and incident management. They provide a centralized and holistic view of a company’s risks, controls, and compliance status, enabling organizations to make data-driven decisions and prioritize resources more effectively.
The security market is thriving, with GRC vendors offering solutions that cater to various industries, company sizes, and risk and compliance needs. This article will explore the top GRC tools and highlight each solution’s best use cases and features.
We’ve compiled a list of leading trends in the 2025 GRC space, organized alphabetically.
Automated compliance functions such as data collecting, monitoring, and reporting are increasingly automated to save manual labor and increase accuracy.
Companies are integrating ESG metrics and reporting into their GRC programs to meet growing stakeholder expectations and regulatory requirements. This includes adhering to frameworks like the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) and the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD), which demand more comprehensive and standardized ESG disclosures.
Governance is set to take center stage in the GRC world, with the NIST CSF 2.0 now including governance as a core function of cyber GRC and risk management.
GRC products progressively provide deeper Integration with other business systems such as ERP, CRM, and project management applications.
The ability to withstand and recover from disruptions is paramount. Organizations are prioritizing operational resilience, with a focus on business continuity planning, disaster recovery, and cyber resilience. A key driver is the EU’s Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA), which sets forth requirements for financial entities to manage and mitigate ICT (Information and Communication Technology) risks. This includes establishing robust incident management, testing, and third-party risk management frameworks.
Improved real-time risk monitoring and identification capabilities using modern technologies, including alerts and notifications, allow faster response to a dynamic threat landscape.
Companies operate across diverse geographic locations and engage with many third-party service providers. These entities are essential links in the organization’s operations and value chain.
Regulators are placing greater emphasis on the extended enterprise, holding organizations accountable for the actions of their suppliers and vendors. Integrating VRM into GRC practices is essential for ensuring regulatory compliance and mitigating risks in today’s interconnected business environment.
Accountability for risk and compliance is a growing trend worldwide, especially at the board level. GRC decisions will likely be more transparent and backed by business leadership.
There is a strong emphasis on using advanced analytics, artificial intelligence, and machine learning to improve risk identification, automate compliance operations, and provide predictive insights. In addition, more and more client companies will use AI to improve their GRC workflows, while oversight and regulation will likely grow.
Centraleyes offers several features that distinguish it from other GRC tools. Its automated risk management workflows enable you to identify and prioritize risks, develop and track risk mitigation programs, and monitor risk tolerance levels. Centraleyes lets users extract risk data from across the enterprise and generate one-click reports for real-time decision-making.
Centraleyes provides uniform workflows and support for self-assessments and vendor risk management, making Centraleyes a popular solution for businesses seeking efficient risk and compliance management.
The platform consists of three core solutions (1st Party, 3rd Party, and Board View), each built to be highly configurable with centralized data so that users can gain visibility across all their risk and compliance functions at any stage.
Anyone concerned about deploying a new GRC system would appreciate Centraleye’s simple onboarding and first-rate customer assistance.
Archer Insight is a robust risk management solution that facilitates insightful analysis of risks and their potential mitigations. It provides a comprehensive view of enterprise-level risks by standardizing risk exposure calculations and integrating risk quantification into the Enterprise Risk Management (ERM) framework. Leveraging pre-built mathematical models enables consistent quantification of various risk types, aiding in effective decision-making and resource allocation.
AuditBoard emerges as a comprehensive risk management platform, empowering organizations to elevate audit, risk, IT security, and ESG programs. AuditBoard fosters improved risk awareness and ownership across functional teams through seamless collaboration and automation. Its AI-driven content generation, intuitive reporting dashboards, and integration capabilities with major workplace systems ensure streamlined risk management and reporting processes.
Diligent HighBond streamlines governance, risk, and compliance (GRC) processes. Centralizing GRC allows firms to create automated, end-to-end procedures for real-time policy modification. Using powerful data analytics, HighBond gives users in-depth insights without technological experience.
Dashboards and reports provide visibility into GRC data on the platform. Diligent’s Security Program follows the NIST Cybersecurity Framework and ISO/IEC 27001 requirements to secure information assets using an ISMS.
Drata is a leading compliance automation platform that provides expert support to businesses in achieving audit-ready status. With over 85 native integrations, Drata enables seamless evidence collection and control monitoring across diverse systems. Offering pre-built frameworks and customizable controls simplifies compliance management, ensuring continuous monitoring and proactive risk mitigation.
See for yourself how the Centraleyes platform exceeds anything an old GRC
system does and eliminates the need for manual processes and spreadsheets
to give you immediate value and run a full risk assessment in less than 30 days
IBM OpenPages is an AI-powered GRC platform consolidating risk management functions within a unified environment. It is seamlessly integrated with IBM Cloud Pak for Data and facilitates efficient risk identification, management, monitoring, and reporting.
OpenPages unifies business-wide risk and compliance programs into a unified management system, forming the cornerstone for enterprise risk management (ERM). OpenPages offers modular and integrated governance, risk, and compliance solutions for ESG, data protection, operational risk, and more.
LogicGate Risk Cloud is a centralized platform designed to enhance risk management practices within organizations. Offering streamlined workflows, automated evidence collection, and quantification of risks, LogicGate enables efficient risk assessment and communication. With support for various solutions, including controls compliance, cyber risk management, and third-party risk management, it caters to diverse risk management needs.
LogicManager stands out with its strong emphasis on Enterprise Risk Management (ERM). This facilitates a holistic view of the risk landscape, enabling informed strategic decisions. LogicManager streamlines risk management workflows through its process-centric design.
The platform integrates risk management, compliance, and audit functionalities into a unified system. Users appreciate the robust reporting capabilities. While highly flexible and customizable, some users find the interface less intuitive and the initial implementation complex.
Onspring is a flexible, no-code GRC and business operations platform that empowers organizations to tailor processes to their specific needs. This adaptability is particularly beneficial for midmarket companies seeking customized solutions without extensive technical expertise. Onspring consolidates various GRC functions, including risk management, compliance, audit, and vendor management, into a centralized platform.
Users praise the integrated data management and robust reporting tools, which provide valuable insights into risk and compliance posture. Many would like to see more advanced reporting and feature depth.
Resolver emerges as an all-encompassing GRC solution, focusing on enterprise risk management, regulatory compliance, internal audit, and vendor risk management. Through data-informed internal audits and streamlined compliance monitoring, Resolver aids organizations in improving risk culture and operational efficiency. Its comprehensive vendor risk management software minimizes the impact of potential incidents, ensuring secure and resilient operations.
Riskonnect is a leading GRC platform tailored for professionals in various industries, such as healthcare, retail, insurance, financial services, and manufacturing. With its comprehensive GRC suite of features, Riskonnect integrates governance, management, and reporting of performance, risk, and compliance processes across the organization. Its strategic analytics, powered by Riskonnect Insights, provide invaluable intelligence by surfacing critical risks to senior leadership through alerts and visualizations.
Riskonnect offers seamless integration with the Salesforce CRM platform, enhancing its user functionality and usability. While Riskonnect boasts numerous advantages, such as task automation, customizable dashboards, and vendor information gathering, some users have reported challenges with software implementation and a steep learning curve.
SAI360 is a comprehensive compliance and risk management solution that offers unified management systems, real-time dashboards, and automated workflows. With features for enterprise and operational risk management, ethics and compliance learning, and digital risk management, SAI360 enables organizations to maintain a culture of compliance and make informed decisions. Additionally, its integration with Evotix offers end-to-end EHS&S services, further enhancing organizational resilience.
ZenGRC is a cloud-based risk and compliance management solution renowned for its continuous monitoring capabilities and streamlined audit management processes. With its customizable and centralized platform, businesses can navigate audits and monitor risks while benefiting from a single source of truth.
ZenGRC’s vendor risk management feature empowers users to assess vendor risks through questionnaires and access pre-built libraries of regulations, ensuring comprehensive compliance.
The platform also fosters stakeholder collaboration through cross-functional workflows. With pre-built integrations, audit and compliance teams can seamlessly complete compliance and audit tasks.
Improved Decision-Making: GRC software has extensive reporting features that enable data-driven decision-making.
Responsible Operations: GRC supports ethical standards inside enterprises to ensure responsible and sustainable operations.
Enhanced Cybersecurity: GRC helps analyze cyber GRC threats and execute actions to meet data protection regulations, which improves cybersecurity.
Single-Point of Reference: GRC software provides a single picture of governance, risk, and compliance operations, increasing efficiency and accuracy in risk assessment and compliance management.
Effective Risk Assessment: GRC systems automate and streamline risk assessment processes, allowing for data-driven decisions and efficient risk mitigation.
GRC tools typically have features such as risk assessment, compliance management, policy management, incident management, audit management, reporting and analytics, risk management, third-party risk management, document management, and workflow automation. To be considered for inclusion on this list of the best GRC tools, the solution had to support the ability to fulfill these use cases.
Tools that offer robust integration capabilities or leverage AI and machine learning for predictive risk analysis or other purposes are nice features.
Intuitive user interfaces that simplify complex data visualization are a plus. Also, those that provide value with precise, logical navigation, easy access to key features, and responsive design that supports various devices and screen sizes.
Outstanding onboarding support and resources influenced our final list of the best GRC solutions. Critical factors included the availability of comprehensive training materials, including videos, templates, and interactive tours, and the ease of data migration and integration setup.
Customers value the availability of a knowledge base, a responsive customer service team, and tools that offer dedicated account management for personalized support.
All GRC platforms are not made equal. How does a corporation choose the best platform?
To choose the proper GRC solution for your firm, identify and define your needs.
Every organization and security program is different. Some GRC solutions are better for scaling startups, while others are better for enterprise purposes. Some GRC systems are superior for specialized industries like healthcare, finance, and insurance.
Software evaluation is crucial to GRC solution selection.
Don’t settle for a race-the-clock solution. Many solutions promise to get you up and running quickly, helping you prepare for attestations like SOC 2s or guarantee a full audit in weeks.
In reality, a good security audit takes time. Even if your organization’s security isn’t mature, you can look for quick implementation, but an audit turnaround of two weeks is unreasonable.
Managing a complex and ever-changing business environment is difficult.
Features to look for include:
One of the most complex parts of picking a GRC tool is cost. Cheaper is rarely better, and expensive only sometimes means best. Thus, features, functionality, and long-term security and compliance goals must be considered.
Getting executive buy-in is the largest issue when analyzing GRC solution costs. They will want to know platform staff expenses, implementation time, learning curve, and long-term investment return.
Choose a platform that integrates seamlessly into your IT surroundings and infrastructure. No-code deployment should simplify onboarding and ease the move.
Traditional risk assessments often rely on static reports, spreadsheets, and manual processes, leading to delays and blind spots. Modern GRC platforms address this by automating data collection, centralizing risk registers, and providing dynamic risk scoring based on real-time data. Features like risk heat maps, predictive analytics, and AI-driven insights help organizations identify, assess, and prioritize risks more efficiently. Additionally, automated workflows ensure that remediation efforts are tracked and acted upon, reducing the risk of oversight.
Organizations frequently need to comply with multiple standards like NIST CSF, ISO 27001, SOC 2, and GDPR. Instead of managing each framework separately, modern GRC solutions offer cross-mapping capabilities that align controls across different regulatory requirements. This means that when you address a control for one framework, it automatically updates related controls in others, significantly reducing compliance fatigue. Additionally, centralized compliance dashboards provide real-time status tracking, audit readiness insights, and automated evidence collection, ensuring teams stay ahead of regulatory changes.
Cyber threats and vendor risks evolve rapidly, making static risk assessments insufficient. Advanced GRC tools integrate with cybersecurity systems, vendor risk management platforms, and real-time threat intelligence feeds to provide continuous monitoring. Automated alerts notify teams of emerging vulnerabilities, while AI-driven analytics offer predictive insights into potential risk areas before they escalate. By leveraging real-time dashboards and risk-scoring models, organizations can proactively manage cybersecurity and third-party risks instead of reacting to incidents after they occur.
No two organizations are identical, and no two GRC solutions are either. Maturity, size, budget, and goals determine your choice of GRC solution.
The old stigma of risk, compliance, and infosec teams hindering growth, slowing productivity, impeding creativity, and generally getting in the way of everyone doing their job is gone. Centraleyes is empowering businesses more than ever to grow revenue, speed up productivity, and gain new business.
If your company needs a GRC suite solution, schedule a demo today to experience a next-generation GRC platform with Centraleyes.
See for yourself how the Centraleyes platform exceeds anything an old GRC
system does and eliminates the need for manual processes and spreadsheets
to give you immediate value and run a full risk assessment in less than 30 days
The post The 13 Best GRC Tools for 2025 appeared first on Centraleyes.
In today’s fast-paced and interconnected world, compliance and regulatory frameworks are evolving faster than ever. The risk of falling behind on these changes can be severe. Enter horizon scanning—a concept that’s rapidly gaining traction in compliance and regulatory risk management.
Horizon scanning is not a new concept. In fact, horizon scanning has been used for years in fields like healthcare, technology, and public policy to anticipate challenges before they become problems.
Horizon scanning is like having radar for your compliance risks. Instead of just reacting to what’s in your face, you’re scanning the distance for trouble—whether it’s new laws, disruptive technologies, or shifts in public expectations.
Think of it this way:
Horizon scanning keeps you informed, so you’re not left scrambling when the regulatory winds change.
Incorporating horizon scanning into your compliance and regulatory risk management strategy doesn’t require overhauling your existing processes. Instead, it’s about enriching your current framework with proactive foresight. Here’s how to integrate horizon scanning into your compliance efforts:
Keep an eye on new and upcoming legislation in your industry, as well as broader global trends. This can involve monitoring:
Utilize data tools and platforms to track changes in regulations and compliance standards. Platforms that aggregate news, regulatory updates, and legislative changes can give you a continuous stream of information about developments that may affect your compliance obligations.
Horizon scanning isn’t just the job of the compliance team—it’s a cross-functional effort. Get input from your legal, IT, security, and business development teams to understand how changes in regulations might affect various parts of your business. This collaborative approach ensures that all potential impacts are considered.
With technological advancements happening at lightning speed, horizon scanning is essential for anticipating how new technologies could reshape the regulatory landscape. For example, advancements in artificial intelligence and machine learning may require changes to data privacy laws, forcing businesses to adapt their compliance processes.
As you identify emerging risks and trends, assess how well your current compliance programs align with these changes. Identify gaps where your organization may need to adjust its strategies, tools, or training to stay compliant in the future. This proactive approach allows you to remain agile and avoid last-minute compliance headaches.
See for yourself how the Centraleyes platform exceeds anything an old GRC
system does and eliminates the need for manual processes and spreadsheets
to give you immediate value and run a full risk assessment in less than 30 days
In horizon scanning, staying ahead of emerging trends and regulatory changes that will impact your cybersecurity strategies is essential. As we move into 2025, several new and updated regulations highlight the global shift toward proactive cybersecurity, horizon scanning risk management, and digital resilience. These changes affect industries across the globe and offer organizations an opportunity to not only comply with evolving laws but also to strengthen their overall cyber defenses. Here are some key legislative developments to watch:
Starting in October 2024, the NIS2 Directive builds upon its predecessor to improve cybersecurity for critical infrastructure sectors such as energy, transport, and healthcare. With new breach notification timelines and greater coordination among EU countries, organizations must ensure they can meet the stringent compliance requirements, including strengthening their risk management and cybersecurity frameworks.
The 2024 U.S. National Cybersecurity Strategy is aimed at creating a more resilient national infrastructure. It introduces an increased emphasis on public-private partnerships and sets forth new obligations for businesses, particularly those in critical sectors, to strengthen their cybersecurity postures. For companies operating in the U.S., horizon scanning should now focus on understanding where additional investments will be needed to meet these emerging regulatory standards.
Horizon scanning for 2024 should also account for the ongoing updates to the Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification (CMMC) 2.0, a vital regulation for defense contractors in the U.S. Expected to be fully implemented by 2025, CMMC 2.0 introduces critical cybersecurity requirements, with three levels of certification, aimed at safeguarding sensitive defense information. The framework simplifies previous iterations but still mandates significant investments in security across the defense supply chain. As contractors prepare for these new regulations, horizon scanning provides an opportunity to assess current security postures and align with the evolving compliance deadlines.
Coming into force in 2024, the CRA mandates cybersecurity requirements for products across their entire lifecycle. This regulation applies to all digital products and services, ranging from consumer devices to enterprise software. Horizon scanning software technology companies must now include strategies for product development and lifecycle management to comply with these new standards.
Horizon scanning methods are already being used in various sectors to manage regulatory risk and horizon scanning compliance. Here’s a closer look at some industries and examples where it’s making a significant impact:
In financial services, horizon scanning is an essential tool for staying compliant with the ever-changing landscape of regulations. With regulations such as anti-money laundering (AML) laws, Basel III capital requirements, and data privacy rules like GDPR evolving constantly, financial organizations are increasingly turning to regulatory technology (RegTech) for horizon scanning.
The healthcare and life sciences industries also benefit significantly from horizon scanning, particularly in relation to patient safety, clinical trials, and data protection laws. Regulatory bodies like the FDA and EMA regularly introduce new guidelines affecting pharmaceuticals, medical devices, and health data management.
In the telecommunications industry, horizon scanning is critical for managing data privacy and security compliance. With the proliferation of digital services and growing concerns over data breaches, telecom companies must keep up with complex and fast-changing regulations governing data usage and protection.
The energy sector is another field where horizon scanning has proven valuable. Regulations around carbon emissions, renewable energy standards, and environmental protection laws are constantly evolving. Horizon scanning helps energy companies stay compliant by forecasting changes in energy regulations that might affect operations or investments.
For instance, energy companies track new regulations related to sustainability, carbon footprints, and renewable energy incentives through horizon scanning.
International trade regulations, tariffs, and supply chain laws also benefit from horizon scanning, especially with the increasing complexity of global trade. The ability to anticipate changes in customs laws, export controls, and tariffs can be the difference between maintaining smooth operations and facing costly delays.
Several tools and platforms can assist businesses in horizon scanning regulatory change. These regulatory horizon scanning tools are designed to track regulations, analyze trends, and provide insights into potential changes, ensuring compliance teams are well-equipped to manage evolving requirements.
Some popular horizon scanning tools include:
Horizon scanning reports are one of the most important outputs of the horizon scanning process. These reports provide a detailed analysis of potential risks, emerging regulatory changes, and their implications for the business. They serve as a crucial tool for decision-makers, helping them understand how to adapt and stay compliant.
Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is becoming an integral part of compliance, particularly with the rise of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) regulations. Horizon scanning plays a key role in ensuring that businesses not only stay ahead of these regulations but also align with societal expectations regarding sustainability, diversity, and ethical business practices.
By proactively scanning the horizon for upcoming CSR and ESG regulations, companies can identify emerging trends and adapt their strategies to ensure compliance. For instance, they can anticipate regulatory changes regarding carbon emissions, waste management, and sustainable supply chains, ensuring they meet new requirements without scrambling to implement changes at the last minute. Horizon scanning also helps organizations identify opportunities to lead in the CSR space, like adopting renewable energy initiatives or committing to better labor practices before they become mandatory.
Horizon scanning is a crucial tool in crisis management. By forecasting potential regulatory, market, or political disruptions, companies can prepare for crises before they occur. This proactive approach allows organizations to create contingency plans that minimize risks and avoid being caught off guard by sudden changes.
For example, horizon scanning can help businesses prepare for sudden shifts in data privacy laws, such as the introduction of stringent data protection regulations like GDPR. By being aware of these changes early, companies can adjust their data handling practices and avoid the legal and financial repercussions of non-compliance. Horizon scanning also helps businesses identify operational risks—such as supply chain disruptions or changes in industry standards—that could lead to crises.
The world of compliance is evolving, and horizon scanning is becoming an essential tool for businesses that want to stay ahead of the curve. By adopting a proactive, forward-looking approach to regulatory risk, you’ll be better equipped to anticipate challenges, navigate regulatory changes, and position your organization for long-term success.
As businesses continue to operate in an environment of constant change, integrating horizon scanning into your compliance framework will allow you to:
Horizon scanning doesn’t offer a crystal-clear view of the future, but it gives your organization the tools to make better, more informed decisions and prepare for the unknown. As regulatory landscapes shift, businesses must adapt and remain vigilant—horizon scanning is the key to doing just that.
See for yourself how the Centraleyes platform exceeds anything an old GRC
system does and eliminates the need for manual processes and spreadsheets
to give you immediate value and run a full risk assessment in less than 30 days
The post The Essential Guide to Horizon Scanning in Compliance and Regulatory Frameworks appeared first on Centraleyes.
As organizations lean more heavily on external vendors for essential services, managing third-party risk assessment has become a vital part of any cybersecurity strategy. The stats are alarming: 60% of data breaches are linked to third-party vendors, and the average time to identify and contain such breaches is 280 days. That’s 9 out of 12 months in a vulnerable state!
These numbers should serve as a serious call to action.
In the modern business landscape, vendors play an indispensable role. From IT services and cloud providers to supply chain partners, these third-party entities have access to sensitive data or perform critical functions for your business. This interconnectedness opens doors to potential security vulnerabilities.
Vendor risk management protects sensitive data, maintains business continuity, and upholds customer trust. Breaches caused by third parties can lead to regulatory fines, damaged reputations, and customer loss.
Before diving into specific tools, let’s understand the key factors that make a third-party risk assessment certification platform effective:
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to give you immediate value and run a full risk assessment in less than 30 days
Let’s dive deeper into some of the top solutions for third-party risk assessment software, focusing on their unique strengths and potential challenges.
Centraleyes is a dynamic and comprehensive risk management platform that specializes in third (and fourth!) party risk assessment. With its powerful features, Centraleyes is designed to address the complexities of modern vendor risk management. It combines automation with real-time insights, providing businesses a robust, user-friendly tool to handle their entire third-party ecosystem with granular scalability.
Ideal For: Mid to large enterprises seeking a full-featured, scalable platform for managing third-party risk across a wide vendor network. With its depth of automation and real-time monitoring capabilities, Centraleyes is perfect for organizations that require continuous oversight of vendor risk and seamless integration into their existing security workflows.
Limitations: Centraleyes’ feature-rich environment may appear complex for teams unfamiliar with full-scale risk management solutions.
UpGuard has carved out a space in the TPRM market with its user-friendly interface and affordable pricing. It is a favorite among small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) that want a comprehensive view of vendor security risks without the complexity of large-scale tools.
Ideal For: Small to mid-sized organizations that require a simple, affordable solution for managing vendor risk.
Limitations: While UpGuard is excellent for entry-level risk management, larger enterprises might need more customizability and depth compared to more robust tools.
Vanta’s sweet spot lies in automating compliance processes. If your organization is aiming for SOC 2, ISO 27001, or HIPAA certification, Vanta streamlines the process with built-in risk assessments and continuous monitoring.
Ideal For: Organizations pursuing SOC 2 or ISO 27001 certification.
Limitations: Vanta is an excellent compliance automation tool but may not offer the same level of vendor-specific risk insights compared to solutions like Centraleyes or Panorays.
Drata is designed to simplify the compliance process, offering a risk register feature that automates the identification and monitoring of risks. This makes it a popular choice for organizations juggling multiple compliance frameworks.
Ideal For: Enterprises looking for an integrated risk management and compliance solution.
Limitations: Though effective for compliance, Drata’s risk register may be too simplistic for more complex organizations that need deeper risk customization.
Panorays stands out with its focus on usability and real-time vendor risk monitoring. Its platform provides a holistic view of vendors, with detailed scoring based on continuous assessments.
Ideal For: Companies that need continuous vendor monitoring without sacrificing usability.
Limitations: Panorays has yet to establish itself in the broader market, which means that its feature set may not be as comprehensive as some of the larger players in the space.
Many organizations still rely on annual risk assessments, but this approach is rapidly becoming outdated. Vendors’ risk profiles can change overnight due to new vulnerabilities, breaches, or shifts in regulatory requirements. Continuous monitoring is essential to maintain an accurate understanding of third-party risks.
Third party risk assessment questionnaires like the Standard Information Gathering (SIG) or the Consensus Assessments Initiative Questionnaire (CAIQ) are frequently the starting point for organizations assessing third-party risk. They offer a structured approach to gathering key security information. Organizations can simultaneously distribute these questionnaires to numerous vendors, allowing for quick data collection across a broad vendor base. This is particularly helpful for businesses managing many third-party relationships. The standardized nature of these questionnaires also streamlines auditing, making them a practical, cost-effective tool for initial vendor screening.
However, despite these strengths, there are notable limitations to relying solely on security questionnaires. One major issue is that the data provided is self-reported, meaning that vendors are responsible for assessing and sharing their own security posture. This can lead to overestimations or omissions—either unintentionally or, in some cases, to avoid disclosing vulnerabilities. Without independent validation, the self-reported information can give a misleading sense of security. Moreover, while questionnaires help gather broad information, they often lack the depth and context necessary to understand a vendor’s security practices fully. For instance, a vendor might indicate that they have an incident response plan. Still, the questionnaire may not delve into the specifics, such as how often the plan is tested or how effective it has proven in practice.
Another challenge is that the information gathered through security questionnaires is often static. Since these assessments are typically conducted annually or only at the beginning of a vendor relationship, the data may not reflect real-time changes. Over the course of a year, new vulnerabilities can emerge, regulatory requirements can shift, and the vendor’s security posture can evolve—leaving organizations exposed to risks that the questionnaire didn’t capture. Also, questionnaires tend to offer a broad overview but may fall short in addressing specific emerging threats or providing insights into real-time risks. As such, relying on questionnaires alone can create significant blind spots in a company’s risk management strategy. To mitigate these risks, it’s essential to supplement questionnaires with continuous monitoring and third-party validation, ensuring a more dynamic and accurate understanding of vendor vulnerabilities.
To ensure a successful third-party risk management program, here are some best practices to follow:
Third-party risk management is a crucial component of any modern cybersecurity strategy. As businesses increasingly rely on third-party vendors, understanding and managing those risks is more important than ever. Trust is essential, but verification is critical.
By leveraging the right third-party risk assessment software and following best practices, you can significantly reduce your organization’s exposure to vendor-related risks.
See for yourself how the Centraleyes platform exceeds anything an old GRC
system does and eliminates the need for manual processes and spreadsheets
to give you immediate value and run a full risk assessment in less than 30 days
The post Best 5 Third-Party Risk Assessment Platforms appeared first on Centraleyes.
Policy management is the sturdy scaffolding that supports governance, risk, and compliance (GRC) objectives while shaping corporate culture and ensuring adherence to regulatory obligations. Yet, many organizations struggle with a disjointed approach—policies scattered across departments, processes misaligned, and technology underutilized.
Organizations with disconnected policies end up with fragments of truth instead of a cohesive narrative. Such a siloed approach obstructs governance and compliance, leaving critical blind spots. The GRC 20/20 Policy Management Maturity Model emphasizes a unified, enterprise-wide strategy. This doesn’t just mean centralizing policy ownership—it means integrating policy governance into the fabric of your operations.
The complexity of today’s regulatory landscape, coupled with increasing business intricacies, makes a coordinated strategy imperative. From risk management policy development to enforcement and review, organizations must embrace a holistic visibility of policies to navigate risks, adapt to change, and maintain operational integrity.
A mature policy management program stands on ten foundational principles. Here’s a closer look at how these principles can revolutionize your strategy:
Organizations need a robust capability framework to operationalize these principles, spanning governance, development, communication, enforcement, and improvement. Here’s how to achieve it:
Start with a “Policy on Policies.” This meta-policy establishes the ground rules for creating, managing, and enforcing policies. Form a cross-functional governance team to oversee implementation and standardization.
Standardize the methods for drafting, revising, and retiring policies. This ensures alignment with organizational goals and regulatory requirements while maintaining consistency.
Policies are only as good as their reach. Invest in training and communication strategies that make policies resonate with their audiences. Tailor delivery methods to suit different roles and responsibilities.
Establish clear processes for monitoring adherence, managing exceptions, and addressing non-compliance. Automation tools can simplify GRC policy enforcement while maintaining an audit trail.
Policy management isn’t static. Regularly review policies to ensure relevance and effectiveness. Use metrics to identify gaps and opportunities for improvement.
A mature program requires more than a process overhaul—it demands a strategic architecture that integrates process, information, and technology. Here’s a breakdown:
The right technology is the linchpin of effective policy management. A robust platform should:
Organizations that embrace an adaptive, context-driven platform gain the agility to navigate regulatory shifts while reducing costs and improving performance.
See for yourself how the Centraleyes platform exceeds anything an old GRC
system does and eliminates the need for manual processes and spreadsheets
to give you immediate value and run a full risk assessment in less than 30 days
Your GRC policies should reflect the collective wisdom of your organization. Establishing a GRC policy committee ensures that key stakeholders, including compliance, legal, HR, IT, and other departments, are part of the decision-making process. This collaboration ensures policies are practical, comprehensive, and aligned with organizational goals.
Pro Tip: Regularly schedule committee meetings to review existing policies, discuss new regulations, and address emerging risks.
Before diving into individual policies, create a GRC policy on policies—a metapolicy that defines the processes for drafting, approving, updating, and retiring policies. This document should outline governance structures, approval workflows, and ownership responsibilities to maintain consistency across the board.
Why It Matters: A clear policy on policies helps eliminate ambiguities and ensures every department follows the same playbook.
Standardization is key to clarity. Use a GRC policy template that outlines critical sections such as purpose, scope, responsibilities, procedures, and review cycles. A consistent format makes policies easier to understand and ensures compliance requirements are uniformly addressed.
Best Practice: Use accessible language in your templates, avoiding jargon to ensure employees at all levels understand policies.
Effective GRC policies are not one-size-fits-all. They should be tailored to fit your organization’s unique operational model, culture, and risk appetite. Align policies with strategic objectives to ensure they drive business value while addressing critical risks.
Example: A tech company with high data privacy concerns might prioritize policies on data security and encryption over other operational areas.
The most comprehensive policy is useless if employees can’t access or understand it. Create an easily navigable policy portal where employees can search and retrieve policies effortlessly. Consider hosting periodic training sessions or using engaging formats like videos and infographics to communicate key policies.
Key Point: Accessible policies promote awareness, adherence, and a culture of compliance.
Policy enforcement should not rely solely on manual oversight. Use automated tools to monitor adherence and flag non-compliance in real time. This ensures that policies are not just guidelines but enforceable mandates integrated into daily operations.
Example: Implement automated checks for access control policies within IT systems to prevent unauthorized access.
Policies need to evolve alongside your organization and the regulatory landscape. Implement a feedback mechanism where employees can suggest improvements to policies or report issues with compliance. Periodic audits and reviews will also help identify gaps and areas for refinement.
Pro Tip: Use metrics like policy adherence rates and incident reports to measure the effectiveness of your GRC policy framework.
Siloed policies create confusion and inefficiencies. Develop an integrated approach where policies are aligned across departments and mapped to your overall GRC objectives.
Use Case: Link HR policies on workplace conduct with IT policies on email use to ensure consistency in addressing inappropriate communication.
Your GRC policy management doesn’t end with your organization. Ensure that your third-party vendors, partners, and suppliers adhere to your policies through clear contractual obligations and regular audits.
Why It’s Crucial: Third-party non-compliance can lead to reputational damage, financial penalties, and operational disruptions.
The complexity of managing policies across a dynamic enterprise requires technology that’s as agile as your organization. Invest in a GRC policy management platform that supports collaborative policy authoring, regulatory mapping, real-time enforcement, and detailed reporting.
Centraleyes transforms policy management into a streamlined, dynamic, and integrated process, addressing the challenges organizations face with scattered and siloed approaches.
A single source of truth is essential for effective policy management. Centraleyes provides a centralized, cloud-based repository where organizations can store, organize, and access all their policies. This eliminates silos and ensures consistency across departments.
Writing and updating policies often involve multiple stakeholders. Centraleyes enables seamless collaboration through real-time editing and automated workflow approvals.
Staying compliant with ever-changing regulations can be daunting. Centraleyes leverages AI to map policies to relevant regulatory requirements, ensuring your policies align with current standards.
Effective policy communication is as critical as drafting them. Centraleyes automates the distribution of policies to relevant stakeholders, ensuring everyone is informed and accountable.
Metrics are key to measuring policy effectiveness. Centraleyes provides real-time dashboards and analytics to track policy adherence, identify gaps, and uncover opportunities for improvement.
Policies need to evolve with your organization. Centraleyes includes mechanisms for soliciting feedback and streamlining updates, ensuring your policy framework remains relevant and effective.
By integrating these capabilities into a single, user-friendly platform, Centraleyes empowers organizations to elevate their policy management maturity.
Ready to take your policy management to the next level? Explore the Centraleyes Policy Management Center and experience the power of holistic simplicity in risk and compliance.
See for yourself how the Centraleyes platform exceeds anything an old GRC
system does and eliminates the need for manual processes and spreadsheets
to give you immediate value and run a full risk assessment in less than 30 days
The post Best Policy Templates for Compliance: Essential Documents for Regulatory Success appeared first on Centraleyes.
Bylin: Jeffrey Wheatman, Senior Vice President, Cyber Risk Strategist
Cybersecurity teams are always on alert for the next attack, but the most dangerous threats are often the ones no one sees coming.
Silent breaches — often unnoticed vulnerabilities within third-party networks — are becoming one of the most pervasive cybersecurity challenges. While the rise of interconnected IT ecosystems has fueled efficiency, it’s also created entry points for attackers that often go undetected until it’s too late.
As organizations rely more on third-party suppliers, cloud services, and digital infrastructure, they are increasingly vulnerable to risks beyond their direct control. In Black Kite’s 2025 Third-Party Breach Report, we took a closer look into the most significant breaches of 2024 to shed light on the silent breach phenomenon, including why it’s so hard to detect these threats and how you can mitigate them in the year ahead.
Silent breaches are particularly dangerous because they don’t just impact one company — they cascade through entire industries and supply chains, amplifying the damage. Several high-profile incidents from 2024 illustrate just how far-reaching these threats can be:
These incidents highlight the systemic nature of silent breaches, where vulnerabilities in one organization can quickly lead to widespread disruptions. But what makes these breaches so hard to detect and contain? The answer lies in the complexity of modern supply chains and IT ecosystems.
A perfect storm of fragmented ownership, hidden dependencies, and supply chain blind spots has made silent breaches easy to miss — and even harder to stop.
Organizations often struggle with governance when it comes to third-party risk, with responsibility often split between security, procurement, and supply chain teams. The lack of clear ownership means risks frequently slip through the cracks, allowing vulnerabilities to remain unchecked.
Many organizations also underestimate the impact of concentration and cascading risk in their third-party ecosystems. Over-reliance on a single vendor creates a single point of failure that can decimate operations if that vendor is compromised. A breach in one organization can also ripple silently through multiple layers of third, fourth, or even fifth parties before anyone realizes the exposure.
Visibility into third-party cyber risk is another major issue. Most organizations have a rough estimate of how many partners they work with, but the actual number is almost always higher. Without complete visibility into how each vendor manages risk, companies are left guessing about their exposure. When a breach occurs, they don’t know who to contact or how to mitigate the damage, leading to significant operational and financial consequences.
Most organizations aren’t prepared for silent breaches, catching them flat-footed when one occurs. That leads to a range of serious consequences, including:
Regulations like GDPR, HIPAA, and the Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA) are attempting to close the gaps that enable silent breaches by enforcing stricter risk management standards. DORA, in particular — which recently came into effect in the EU — explicitly recognizes third-party risk and places increased focus on critical service providers, expanding reporting obligations and resilience testing requirements to these providers.
Silent breaches aren’t going away, and compliance alone won’t protect organizations from third-party risks. Organizations must take proactive steps to strengthen resilience across their entire third-party ecosystem. Here’s how cybersecurity leaders can take action in 2025:
Lets look at each strategy in greater detail.
Before organizations can tackle third-party risk, they must first establish a structured governance framework. This framework should identify who assesses vendor risks, how security expectations are enforced, and what escalation procedures exist when risks emerge.
This step also requires bringing all key stakeholders to the table to ensure a shared understanding of third-party dependencies. Security leaders must frame risk in business terms, making it clear how a vendor’s cybersecurity weaknesses could disrupt operations. Black Kite’s FocusTags™ and Cyber Risk Quantification provide CISOs with the data they need to drive these conversations, helping quantify vendor risk and prioritize mitigation efforts based on real business impact.
Rather than seeing vendors as adversaries, organizations need to focus on creating strong, collaborative relationships. Organizations must move beyond static security questionnaires and engage in ongoing conversations about risk.
Cybersecurity expectations should be explicitly written into vendor contracts. Instead of generic security demands, organizations should provide vendors with precise data on vulnerabilities and step-by-step remediation guidance. Tools like Black Kite Bridge™ help streamline this process by eliminating communication gaps and enabling organizations to easily share actionable intelligence with vendors.
Continuous monitoring provides the real-time intelligence needed to track vendor security posture and respond before threats escalate. Instead of starting from scratch when a new zero-day vulnerability is announced, you can instantly pinpoint which third parties are exposed and act accordingly.
Black Kite’s FocusTags™ help organizations continuously assess risks, while the Supply Chain Module maps dependencies and monitors vendor ecosystems for potential disruptions and single points of failure.
Stopping silent breaches requires a shift from reactive responses to proactive vulnerability management. Black Kite’s Ransomware Susceptibility Index® (RSI™) is a powerful tool to uncover the likelihood of an attack across third-party vendors, helping develop effective remediation steps ahead of time.
Updating your approach to compliance gap analysis can also reduce the administrative load on both sides. Traditional security assessments overwhelm vendors with long, generic questionnaires that often fail to capture real risks. Black Kite’s AI-powered compliance gap analysis replaces these questionnaires, analyzing vendor security frameworks to pinpoint compliance gaps. Instead of answering hundreds of irrelevant questions, vendors receive a tailored set of questions, ensuring they focus on the most pressing security improvements.
Real resilience comes from collaboration — both internal and external. Compliance mandates like DORA and the NIST Cybersecurity Framework provide a solid starting point, but security leaders must go beyond regulatory checkboxes.
Strengthening internal alignment is the first step, ensuring security, risk, and procurement teams work together. From there, expanding collaboration externally is critical to staying ahead of evolving threats. Industry-specific groups like ISACs (Information Sharing and Analysis Centers) foster intelligence-sharing and collective defense, while cross-industry collaboration initiatives like ISSA and CISOs Connect™ help security leaders anticipate emerging risks.
Vendors must also be part of this equation. Encouraging them to participate in collaborative initiatives and using tools like Black Kite Bridge™ can help engage vendors in the threat intelligence process, strengthening security partnerships.
Silent breaches might have dominated 2024’s cyber threat landscape, but they don’t have to define the future. The hard lessons from these attacks offer a blueprint for resilience. By taking a proactive approach — strengthening governance, improving vendor collaboration, and continuously monitoring for hidden risks — organizations can turn the tide against silent breaches in 2025.
Read the 2025 Third-Party Breach Report for more insights to avoid the next silent breach.
Dig into our full 2025 Third Party Breach Report: The Silent Breach: How Third Parties Became the Biggest Cyber Threat in 2024 – accessible instantly, no download required.
The post The Silent Breach: Why Third Parties Are Cybersecurity’s Greatest Hidden Threat appeared first on Black Kite.
Byline: Ekrem Selcuk Celik, Cybersecurity Researcher at Black Kite
Welcome to the January 2025 ransomware update, where we highlight the latest trends, threat actors, and developments in the ransomware ecosystem to keep CISOs and third-party risk managers informed and prepared.
The Black Kite Research & Intelligence Team (BRITE) tracked 546 ransomware incidents in January 2025, marking a sharp increase compared to January 2024, which saw approximately 300 cases. This significant rise indicates that ransomware activity is escalating at an alarming pace. Among these incidents, 274 were recorded in the United States, 32 in Canada, 23 in the United Kingdom, and 18 in France.
Manufacturing was the most targeted sector, followed by technical services. Closing out December with 535 cases, ransomware groups have historically shown a tendency to slow down at the beginning of the year. However, this year is proving to be an exception.
The Clop ransomware group took the lead in January 2025 by a significant margin with 115 publicly disclosed victims. As usual, RansomHub remained among the top-ranking groups with 42 victims. One of the most notable groups this month was Lynx, which saw a major surge with 42 victims in January. They were followed by the Akira group, which recorded 38 victims.
Nearly all of the 115 Clop attacks were linked to the CLEO vulnerability, continuing the momentum from Clop’s December disclosures. Initially, only 50 victims were expected, but as the group continues to release names in alphabetical order, the final number could reach 500.
Among these 115 victims, the United States was the most affected, with 79 cases, followed by Canada with 12 and the Netherlands with 4.
In terms of industry impact among these attacks, the manufacturing sector suffered the highest number of attacks, with 34 victims. It was followed by the transportation sector with 18 victims, the information technology sector with 17, and the technical services sector with 14.
Two years ago, during the MoveIT disclosures, Clop was at the center of global media attention. Now, despite its high ransomware activity, the group seems to be struggling to capture the same level of interest. They kept postponing victim disclosures, which was unusual for them, and then starting sharing victims in a different way to seek attention. Whether this signals Clop’s waning influence or a shift in public perception remains to be seen, but one thing is certain: the group appears increasingly frustrated by the lack of attention.
FunkSec continued its aggressive expansion in January, making headlines with its unconventional tactics:
Key takeaways from their recent interview:
FunkSec’s erratic yet calculated moves make them one of the most unpredictable actors in the ransomware ecosystem. Their expansion beyond traditional ransomware operations suggests a broader ambition that could redefine the threat landscape.
A new leak site emerged in January claiming to be affiliated with Babuk, publishing 60 alleged victims. While this sparked speculation that the notorious ransomware group had returned, our analysis revealed that most of the disclosed victims had already been published by FunkSec, RansomHub, and LockBit.
Shortly after the site gained traction, access was restricted, leaving its authenticity in question. Whether this marks the actual return of Babuk or merely an opportunistic attempt to capitalize on the name remains unclear.
Ransomware groups continue to surface at an increasing rate, and the rise of Ransomware-as-a-Service (RaaS) is undoubtedly fueling this trend. However, despite this growth, these groups seem to do little more than mimic each other. Many simply replicate existing leak sites, making it increasingly difficult to track them as they blur into one another.
In previous years, such copycat behavior was less common, but now it’s becoming the norm. This shift strongly suggests that experienced cybercriminals are being replaced by younger, less-skilled actors. As a result, while the number of ransomware groups grows, innovation within the ecosystem seems to be stagnating.
While ransomware attacks surged in 2024, total ransom payments dropped by 35%, amounting to $813.55 million. Companies are increasingly adopting robust cybersecurity measures, improving backup strategies, and benefiting from law enforcement crackdowns on cybercriminals.
Notably, the international operation “Operation Cronos” disrupted LockBit’s infrastructure, demonstrating the growing impact of coordinated cybercrime enforcement. However, despite these advancements, ransomware groups are evolving their tactics, becoming more aggressive in their extortion methods.
In response, the UK government is considering stricter regulations, including:
Authorities believe these measures will curb ransomware groups’ financial streams and act as a deterrent. If enacted, these regulations could reshape how organizations respond to ransomware threats.
January 2025 set a record-breaking pace for ransomware incidents.
For cybersecurity teams, 2025 is already shaping up to be one of the most challenging years yet. Black Kite’s Ransomware Susceptibility Index® (RSITM) offers a proactive approach by assessing the likelihood of a ransomware attack throughout the third-party ecosystem. By leveraging RSI, risk managers can identify high-risk vendors before an attack strikes, prioritize remediation efforts, and ultimately safeguard their organizations against the escalating threat.
Stay tuned for more monthly Ransomware Reviews on our blog and LinkedIn Newsletter.
Dig into our full 2025 Third Party Breach Report: The Silent Breach: How Third Parties Became the Biggest Cyber Threat in 2024 – accessible instantly, no download required.
The post Ransomware Review January 2025: Clop’s CLEO Exploit Fuels a Record Month appeared first on Black Kite.
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