Implementing Risk-Based Internal Audit with ASPIA

Risk-Based Internal Audit (RBIA): Introduction

Risk-Based Internal Auditing (RBIA) involves evaluating and improving internal control systems using a risk-based methodology. Assuring the effective management of risks within an organization is the main goal of RBIA.

Customer Profile

A leading financial institution that provides a range of banking and financial services to its customers. The company has a strong reputation for its robust risk management practices and internal controls. However, in light of recent regulatory changes from RBI, the company’s board of directors decided to adopt the Risk-Based Internal Audit (RBIA) framework to further enhance the effectiveness of its internal audit function.

How ASPIA helped drive RBIA:

The customer implemented ASPIA, a unified collaborative tool designed to help organizations drive risk-based internal audit (RBIA) and improve their internal control systems. The company used ASPIA to assess and visualize the risks faced by the organization and prioritize them based on their impact and likelihood.

Using ASPIA, they were able to design and implement controls to mitigate identified risks and set up a contingency plan for unforeseen events. The company also used ASPIA to conduct internal audits to assess the effectiveness of its risk management plan. This involved reviewing documentation, observing processes, and testing controls to ensure that they were functioning as intended.

After conducting the audit, the internal auditors used ASPIA to prepare a report of their findings, including a description of the risks identified and any recommendations for improvement. The organization used ASPIA’s built-in issue tracking and management feature to address the findings and monitor the status of their resolution.

The ASPIA platform also enabled the organization to maintain historical audit reports, evidence, POCs, and fixes in a centralized database, making them readily available when needed. This helped the company to efficiently track and address any issues that arose during the audit process.

Results:

The implementation of the RBIA framework using ASPIA has been a success. The company has been able to effectively identify and assess the risks it faces and implement controls to mitigate those risks. The internal audit function has also been significantly enhanced, providing assurance to the board of directors and senior management about the quality and effectiveness of the organization’s internal controls and risk management practices.

Conclusion:

Overall, the adoption of ASPIA has helped the organization to strengthen its risk management capabilities and comply with regulatory requirements. The company plans to continue using ASPIA to drive its RBIA efforts in the future.

Reach us at contact@aspiainfotech.com for more details on how ASPIA’s unified collaborative platform can be used by financial institutions to implement RBIA in accordance with the RBI mandate.

We look forward to helping you!!

Application Security

ASPIA for Application Security Posture Management

In this case study, we are sharing details on how ASPIA helped Europe’s leading steel wire manufacturer organization with its Application Security Posture Management. ASPIA is a centralized collaborative platform that helps organizations manage the security posture of their applications. The product is designed to automate the process of identifying, prioritizing, and addressing vulnerabilities and threats in applications. To learn more about the importance of ASPM, please visit the blog for Application Security Posture Management (ASPM).

The company has employees around the globe and has a large number of applications, both in-house and third-party, that are used by its employees, customers, and partners. The company’s IT team is responsible for maintaining the security of these applications.

Challenges:

In the past, the organization faced several security breaches due to vulnerabilities in its applications. These breaches resulted in financial losses, reputational damage, and legal consequences for the company.
The company’s IT team did not have a formal process in place for identifying and managing application security risks. They relied on ad-hoc measures and periodic security assessments to identify vulnerabilities. However, these measures were not sufficient to keep up with the rapidly changing threat landscape.
The company did not have a dedicated security team and the IT team had limited expertise in application security. This made it difficult for them to effectively address the security risks in the applications.

Solution:

To address these challenges, the company implemented ASPIA for Application Security Posture Management. The product provided the following benefits:

Automated security assessments: The product automated the process of conducting security assessments of the company’s applications. It used a combination of automated tools and manual testing methods to identify vulnerabilities and prioritize them based on their severity.
Remediation recommendations: The product provided recommendations on how to fix the identified vulnerabilities. These recommendations included applying patches, updating software, and implementing security controls.
Continuous monitoring: The product continuously monitored the security posture of the applications and alerted the IT team if it detected any new vulnerabilities or threats.
Expertise and resources: The product provided access to a team of application security experts who could assist the IT team in implementing the remediation measures. It also provided access to a library of resources, such as best practices and guidelines, to help the IT team build expertise in application security.

Results:

The implementation of the ASPIA Product for Application Security Posture Management resulted in significant improvements in Company’s application security posture. The company was able to significantly reduce the number of security breaches and incidents, which resulted in reduced financial losses and reputational damage. The IT team was also able to build expertise in application security, which helped them address security risks more effectively.

Conclusion:

ASPIA for ASPM helped the organization effectively manage the security posture of its applications. The automated security assessments and remediation recommendations provided by the product made it easier for the IT team to identify and address vulnerabilities and threats. The continuous monitoring and access to expertise and resources also helped the IT team stay on top of the rapidly changing threat landscape. If you are looking to improve the security posture of your organization’s applications, consider using a product like ASPIA.

Application Security GRC Vulnerability Management

Improved security workflows with ASPIA

Security workflow management in a large enterprise relies heavily on a variety of IT systems, and security teams to support its operations. To protect these assets, the company maintains a team of cybersecurity analysts who are responsible for orchestrating, monitoring, and responding to security alerts and incidents. However, as the volume and complexity of threats have increased, the company has struggled to keep up with the volume of security assessments, alerts, and incidents, leading to delays in response and missed opportunities to prevent or mitigate attacks.

To address these challenges, the organization decided to implement ASPIA. ASPIA is designed to automate many of the manual tasks, simplify the workflows, and integrate with the company’s existing security tools and processes.

Challenges:

Before implementing ASPIA, the organization faced several challenges in managing its cybersecurity operations:

Huge amount of Manual effort:
The amount of manual effort required by the security team to manage the workflows caused delays in response and missed opportunities to prevent or mitigate attacks.
Distributed systems and tools:
Adding to the fatigue of manual efforts security teams also are required to manage all the systems and tools required for the orchestration and management of security workflows, and no platform is available to use all tools from one dashboard.
Poor security insights:
Since the existing processes were complex and time-consuming the organizations often lacked security insights and were not able to get real-time updates on their security.

Solutions:

To address these challenges, ASPIA was chosen as a solution provider, which included the following capabilities:

Automation of incident response tasks:
ASPIA automates many of the manual tasks involved in managing the security workflows, such as gathering and analyzing evidence, preparing reports, listing affected resources, and deploying remediation measures. This allows the security team to respond to threats more quickly and effectively.
Integration with existing security tools and processes:
The ASPIA integrates with the company’s existing security tools and processes, allowing the security team to manage and respond to incidents from a single interface.
Granular insights:
ASPIA analyzes and prioritizes vulnerabilities and threats based on their potential impact. With ASPIA analysis organization was able to visualize the granular insights about their security posture. This helped the security team to focus on the most important threats and to respond to incidents more efficiently.

Results:

As a result of implementing ASPIA, the organization has seen significant improvements in its cybersecurity operations:

The automation of manual tasks has allowed the security team to respond to threats more quickly and with greater accuracy. This has helped to prevent or mitigate a number of attacks and to reduce the number of false positives.
By automating many manual tasks and providing a unified platform. ASPIA has freed up time for the security team to focus on more strategic tasks. This has resulted in an overall increase in productivity and effectiveness.
ASPIA has helped the organization improve its security posture by automating, orchestrating, and simplifying the security workflows effectively.

Conclusion:

The implementation of ASPIA has been a major success for the organization. By automating many of the manual tasks, orchestrating the security workflows, and receiving granular insights. The organization has been able to improve its overall security posture. ASPIA offers cost-effective innovative cybersecurity solutions and services to enterprise customers in order to achieve matured security state. With ASPIA organizations can achieve a mature security state with the orchestration and automation of their security workflows.

GRC

Streamlining GRC Processes with ASPIA

A multinational corporation with operations in banking, finance, and insurance domain. As a large and complex organization, the organization has to adhere to a variety of regulatory requirements and manage various risks across its operations.

CHALLENGES

Prior to implementing ASPIA, the company struggled to effectively manage its GRC processes due to the following challenges:

Lack of visibility:
Different business units used different systems and processes to manage GRC-related information, making it difficult to get a complete and accurate view of the company’s GRC posture.
Inefficient processes:
Manual and decentralized processes made it time-consuming and error-prone to collect, review, and report on GRC-related data.
Limited collaboration:
GRC teams across different business units had limited visibility and collaboration, leading to duplication of efforts and a lack of consistency.

SOLUTION

The organization implemented ASPIA to centralize and automate its GRC processes. The solution provided the following benefits:

A single platform for managing all GRC-related information: ASPIA provided a centralized repository for storing and managing all GRC-related data, such as policies, procedures, risks, controls, and compliance requirements. This made it easier to get a complete and accurate view of the company’s GRC posture and identify potential gaps.
Automated workflows for collecting, reviewing, and reporting on GRC data: ASPIA provided customizable workflows for collecting and reviewing GRC-related data, as well as automated reporting capabilities. This streamlined and accelerated the GRC processes and reduced the risk of errors.
Collaboration and communication tools: ASPIA provided tools for GRC teams to collaborate and communicate effectively, such as discussion forums, document sharing, and notification alerts. This facilitated the sharing of best practices and the coordination of GRC efforts across different business units.

RESULTS

Since implementing the ASPIA, the organization has achieved the following benefits:

Improved visibility and control: The centralized repository and automated GRC workflows provided by ASPIA have given better visibility and control over the organization’s posture. This has enabled the company to identify and address potential gaps and risks in a timely manner.
Increased efficiency: The automation of GRC processes has reduced the time and effort required to collect, review, and report on GRC-related data, freeing up resources for more strategic tasks.
Enhanced collaboration and consistency: The collaboration and communication tools provided by ASPIA have improved the sharing of best practices and the coordination of GRC efforts across different business units, resulting in greater consistency and effectiveness.

CONCLUSION

An integrated risk management and compliance solution from ASPIA effectively aligns with the specific complexity level, commercial potential, and regulatory needs of an organization. The implementation of ASPIA has allowed the organization to streamline and optimize its GRC processes, improving visibility, control, efficiency, and collaboration. As a result, the company has been able to better manage its regulatory requirements and risks, enabling it to focus on driving growth and innovation.

Audit

Revamping audit management with ASPIA

ASPIA helped one of India’s most prominent national banks in revamping audit management. Our team aided the client in enhancing the audit management process with automation, simplification, and suggestion of effective remediation ways.

CHALLENGES

Employee duties overlapped during the traditional complex form of auditing
Audit processes are time-consuming and driven by distributed tools and resources.
Poor visibility due to lack of insights, manual audit tools, and spreadsheets.
Managing and tracking multiple rounds of audits in a year is quite difficult.
Long and recurring procedures of tracking and taking follow-ups at all audit stages.
Difficulty in developing collaboration during audit employees work on separate levels.
Difficulty in ensuring thorough completion of audit assignments.

SOLUTION

Simplification of audit lifecycle throughout the client’s company.
Unified platform to manage the audit and conduct risk analysis.
Streamline audit process with manageable audits and granular security insights whenever necessary.
Flexible scheduling and assignment of different audit items to respective stakeholders.
Implement end-to-end audit management from planning, scheduling, and tracking the process in real-time to reporting.
Enhance collaboration by standardizing the entire audit process from a unified dashboard.
Store the audit evidence, and reports in the centralized dashboard, and retrieve documents when needed from the ASPIA data store.

RESULTS

ASPIA maintained a productive audit lifecycle and ensured uniform distribution of duties amongst employees.
Delivered a simplified integrated, automated, and agile approach to audit planning, scheduling, and management.
Comprehensive audit reports delivered from the ASPIA dashboard maintain consistent quality by overcoming error-prone manual assembly of critical report data from paper records, and spreadsheets.
ASPIA ensures automatic scheduling of recurring audits throughout the year to ensure audit compliance with ease.
Improved audit collaboration by connecting employees of all levels via the centralized ASPIA dashboard.
A centralized, integrated way to collect and manage audit evidence to make you audit-ready at all times with ASPIA.

ASPIA Infotech helped in revamping audit management process with automation, and simplification, and enabled the client to take immediate actions to resolve the potential issues based on real-time process tracking and insights.

Application Security Infrastructure Security

Security testing services for India’s leading entertainment services provider

ASPIA helped one of India’s leading entertainment industry giants with PAN India operations to validate their enterprise security. ASPIA security testing services team performed external security assessments for their enterprise infrastructure and applications.

CHALLENGES

The customer needed to validate the security controls deployed within their assets and IT infrastructure and to address the following concerns:

Validate the effectiveness of safeguard controls to protect sensitive data of the enterprise. In order to protect the company’s reputation from any potential data loss.
Conduct external vulnerability assessment and penetration testing of the client’s infrastructure and applications
Execute effective grey box and black box testing of the enterprise assets.
Test security of web, mobile, and thick client applications that allowed the customers to use their services, that process, and store user’s personal information, financial records, etc.

SOLUTION

The ASPIA team performed vulnerability assessment and penetration testing of the client’s infrastructure, and applications(web, mobile, and thick client) with the testing tools compliant with the ethical hacking methodology.
Our security experts performed application penetration testing based on OWASP and SANS25 guidelines.
The ASPIA team also chose the black-box testing model and simulated various near real-time cyber-attacks.
ASPIA security testing services team followed a combination of automated and manual approaches to conduct a thorough security assessment.

RESULTS

After completing the security assessment ASPIA team delivered a comprehensive assessment report along with the vulnerabilities elimination strategy.
ASPIA elevated clients’ trust and satisfaction because of the proactive security improvement in their applications.
ASPIA team delivered a detailed remediation plan, that helped the client to increase the overall level of enterprise security
The management team was able to make efficient and prioritized decisions for vulnerability resolution and have clear visibility into their security state.

With ASPIA security testing services, the client got comprehensive reports on the security risk assessment of the applications, servers, firewall, and internal network.

Our security experts performed retesting after the client addressed all the vulnerabilities according to the suggested remediation plan. The revalidations showed an elevated security level of the network’s external perimeter and internal environment.

Vulnerability Management

Streamline vulnerability management workflow with ASPIA

ASPIA helped Europe’s steel wire manufacturing company to transform and streamline vulnerability management workflow and enhanced the way to track vulnerabilities. This enhanced vulnerability remediation, resulting in faster and more efficient vulnerability closure.

CHALLENGES

Challenges to tracking the vulnerabilities after the scan completion.
Significant Manual efforts into Vulnerability Management.
Different asset, vulnerability, and issue management platforms lead to extended remediation timelines.
The present security insights of the organization are very poor.

SOLUTION

Continuous Synchronization of assets and vulnerabilities with tenable.io.
Automated workflow of vulnerability management.
Centralized platform to manage all assets, vulnerabilities, and issues from ASPIA Infotech.
Deliver clear and granular security insights about the organization’s security.

RESULTS

Ingestion of assets and vulnerabilities into a unified ASPIA platform presented a real-time status and visualization of found vulnerabilities.
ASPIA enables automation to reduce vulnerability management efforts and delivers a one-click remediation scan from its platform.
Improved tracking with ASPIA resulted in accurate prioritization of efforts based on the risk levels of vulnerabilities.
Enhanced visibility for leadership teams in ASPIA helps them to take effective decisions to address security concerns.

In conclusion, we would like to share that ASPIA integration with tenable.io helped the vulnerability management team manage all their assets, and vulnerabilities from a unified Dashboard. Different teams can collaborate to achieve a faster vulnerability remediation workflow through ASPIA’s automated and streamlined platform.

The manual efforts into managing the vulnerabilities have significantly reduced after this integration and the organization is able to save time and resources.

The leadership team is now able to view the progress of security assessment and vulnerability management in real-time without having the need to go through various presentations of spreadsheets. The team is able to make quick decisions regarding critical vulnerabilities with the help of insights offered by our platform.