Virtual chief information security officers, or vCISOs, can offer businesses the enterprise-caliber expertise needed to architect and implement customized security, privacy, and compliance solutions.

CohnReznick recently had the opportunity to support a large retailer as a vCISO, helping to strengthen their policies, procedures, and capabilities in a number of critical areas.

Visibility: Management did not have enough cybersecurity visibility for their IT program and eCommerce platform.

Solution: CohnReznick provided various sets of ongoing activities to keep management informed of cybersecurity risks across the organization, and provided monthly and quarterly cyber reports.

Strategy: The company did not have an established cybersecurity vision based on their business objectives, and had limited knowledge of where investments needed to be made.

Solution: CohnReznick established a cybersecurity strategy that consisted of an adopted framework and short- and long-term goals for the company to achieve that were based on their evolving business strategy.

Risk awareness: IT and management did not have the resources in place to continuously identify and report cybersecurity risks.

Solution: CohnReznick performed a comprehensive technical risk assessment that reviewed security controls on the company’s eCommerce platform and infrastructure based on an industry standard.

Vendor risk: There was a lack of processes in place to understand risks that were being inherited from vendors and service providers.

Solution: CohnReznick established a vendor risk management program that was scalable for the organization to adopt, and helped define the process to perform due diligence activities, such as identifying vendor cybersecurity risks and risk-rating vendors.

Compliance: The company did not have enough resources to continuously be aware of new data-related regulations applicable to its eCommerce business.

Solution: CohnReznick performed an assessment to identify gaps and alignment with the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI-DSS), and continues to advise the company of applicable U.S. state and global data privacy-related regulations.

Security awareness training: The company had a reactive approach in its security awareness and training program and capabilities.

Solution: CohnReznick helped the company enhance its security awareness and training program with reoccurring training and phishing exercises.

Incident response: The company did not have documented procedures and communication protocols in place for responding to, managing, and reporting security incidents and data breaches.

Solution: CohnReznick helped establish an incident response plan with detailed workflows and processes for the incident response team to respond to security events; triage and prioritize security incidents or data breaches; and report them to necessary stakeholders.

How CohnReznick’s vCISO services can help

CohnReznick’s industry-agnostic, globally-minded vCISO offering provides a curated selection of security and privacy capabilities to help organizations achieve their specific needs. Contact our team to learn more. 

Contact

Bhavesh Vadhani, Principal, National Director, Cybersecurity, Technology Risk, and Privacy

703.847.9120

Ali Khraibani, Manager, Cybersecurity, Technology Risk, and Privacy

862.245.5166