What you should know — Emerging alternative investment managers need to complete a Cyber Risk Assessment (CRA) to create a comprehensive cyber policy.
A CRA offers valuable, actionable information about your firm’s current cyber posture and evaluates your existing cybersecurity program end-to-end. Through completion of a CRA, you can:
- Produce cyber program policies for governance procedures and operational due diligence review.
- Identify existing vulnerabilities in your cyber program across IT, data and user control categories
- Benchmark your program and controls against your peers to clearly guide future scope and priorities.
- Create a remediation roadmap to prioritize your firm’s most severe cyber risks.
Why this is important — Without a CRA, developing an effective cyber policy is aspirational at best.
A CRA offers a starting point to protect your data, assets, and investors. Failure to complete this assessment before creating a cyber policy can leave significant vulnerabilities unaddressed.
Comparatively, completing a CRA as the first step to cyber policy development provides you with:
- Evidence of your cyber posture to present to your board members, investors, and regulators.
- Clear visibility of potential deficiencies against cyber-related regulations.
- Enhanced cyber resilience in the event of a cyber incident.
Read: 2024 SEC Examination Priorities for Cybersecurity in Registered Alternative Investment Funds
The bigger picture — A thorough CRA paves the way to developing a Written Information Security Policy (WISP), an Incident Response Plan (IRP), and a Business Continuity Plan (BCP).
The data and information gathered through a CRA plays an important role in developing your firm’s WISP, IRP, and BCP. Not only can a CRA give you the documentation you need for investors and regulators, but it also provides the necessary foundation from which to build consistent cyber practices.
Your cyber policy is no mere compliance requirement — it is integral to your cyber resilience.
By leveraging a CRA as the basis of your cyber policy strategy, you can build effective cyber plans and policies with minimal effort. The personalized data and insights you receive from a CRA enable you to create tailored policies that are specific to your firm’s needs.
Get smart and take action — An independent cyber vendor can help you determine an actionable road-map when developing a cyber policy.
Drawbridge offers both Cyber Risk Assessments and Cybersecurity Policy Development solutions for emerging alternative fund managers.
With Drawbridge Cybersecurity Policy Development, you gain an expertly crafted WISP, IRP, and BCP uniquely catered to your business, your investors, and your regulators’ requirements.
