IT Risk Management (ITRM) Software

IT risk management software platforms are typically online, cloud-based tools that allow organizations to implement effective IT Governance, Risk, and Compliance (GRC) processes. These tools enable firms to identify and monitor cyber & IT risk exposure, perform risk assessments online, and implement controls to reduce cybersecurity risk. Firms can also use the platforms to manage the risks associated with third-parties, vendors, and suppliers by easily carrying out vendor risk assessments, vendor benchmarking & score carding, and monitoring supplier performance against SLAs and KPIs.

These tools enable firms to create an ‘obligations register’ containing relevant data privacy & information security regulations, legislation, policies, and procedures – enabling firms to understand their IT obligations and monitor adherence. Organizations can also use the platforms to establish a best-practice business continuity planning program, maintain a cyber asset register, and manage and resolve cyber incidents.

The benefits of IT risk management software include:

• Visibility of your cyber risk landscape through insightful dashboards & reports.
• A reduction in time spent on IT risk management reporting and administrative tasks – leaving time to focus on analyzing the data to reduce cyber risk and implement corrective actions.
• IT risk management software provides a holistic view of IT and cyber risk across the entire organization right up to the boardroom.
• ITRM platforms provide useful insights to guide important business decisions regarding where to allocate budget & resources to reduce cyber risk.
• Using cyber & IT risk management services reduces risk monitoring and reporting costs.
• ITRM tools help an organization to overcome challenges in enterprise-wide risk and assurance management by creating a culture that understands cyber risk – building an awareness of cyber risk exposure and the impact of cyber incidents.
• IT risk management solutions enable organizations to reduce the likelihood of system downtime, data breaches, IT incidents, and data loss by effectively managing cyber risk, ensuring compliance with data privacy regulations, implementing business continuity plans, resolving cyber incidents, and building a risk aware culture.
• Effective IT risk management using a cyber risk tool provides assurance to stakeholders and the board that the organisation is taking cyber risk seriously and provides data to support important decision-making.

When selecting an IT risk management software vendor, firms should consider:

• Are there any information security regulations that you must comply with that will affect how you structure your IT risk management program?
• Which framework will you use to rate and categorize IT risk and cyber incidents.
• Can the IT risk management tool be customized to meet any bespoke company requirements?
• Can the IT risk management platform offer further functionality to grow with you as your organization and ITGRC processes expand?
• What information security and data protection protocols does the IT risk management tool have?
• Can the IT risk management platform be mapped and integrated with your other systems and data sources via API Integrations to ensure a single source of truth for cyber risk data?
• Which staff need to access the IT risk management application and what information will they input and what statistics do they need to view and report on?
• What key areas do you want to manage in the platform, consider the following; operational risk management, enterprise risk management, cyber risk management, cyber incident management, business continuity planning, data privacy compliance, IT policy management, and asset management.
• Can risk assessments be conducted for IT assets?
• Can the platform enable qualitative and quantitative risk assessments?
• Does the platform show a unified view of cyber assets, threats, and vulnerabilities for comprehensive risk management of cyber risk?
• Does the IT risk system enable your organization to track regulatory compliance with cyber regulations such as GDPR, NIST, PCI DSS, HIPAA, SOX, and ISO 27001.
• Does the platform offer cloud-based risk management capabilities ensuring the system is available online and widely accessible?

• Cyber & IT risk management – including building a cyber risk register, performing cyber risk assessments, setting KRIs, and operating within a risk appetite framework.
• Control setting and control checks and testing – including vulnerability testing.
• Cyber and IT incident management.
• IT asset management.
• Business continuity planning.
• Compliance with information security regulatory requirements and data privacy laws by accessing best-practice frameworks to comply with regulations & standards like GDPR, ISO 27001, NIST, HIPAA, and PCI DSS.
• IT policy management.
• Cyber audit management.
• Strategic planning & execution.
• Project management.

• Online forms: This enables teams to carry out risk assessments, control checks, control testing, and incident logging online with all data feeding directly into the platform.
• Automated workflows: This enables firms to formulate step-by-step processes for approvals escalations, checks, tasks, and action management.
• API integrations: This empowers companies to pull operational and IT data from other systems and spreadsheets into and out of the IT risk platform to monitor risk levels against real-life data – ensuring a single source of truth.
• Live personalized dashboards: Enabling staff at all levels to view and complete outstanding actions & tasks and view useful data relevant to their roles and responsibilities.
• Instant reporting outputs: Enabling teams to easily visualize cyber risk and information security vulnerabilities so action can be taken.
• Automated notifications: This ensures staff are notified of key information or tasks including:
  • Upcoming actions like risk assessments & control checks.
  • When risk is ‘high’ and action needs to be taken.
  • When control checks or control tests show that controls are ineffective.
  • Signoffs, approvals, and escalations.
  • Policy approvals, changes, signoffs, and attestations.
  • Compliance violations.
  • Failed audits.

When selecting and comparing ITRM platforms consider the following:

• Configurable interface: Look for a platform that offers best practice out-of-the-box templates, frameworks, workflows, forms, and reports that can be easily customized to incorporate any bespoke requirements & terminology by your super users without costly implementation fees and coding.
• Information security: Many IT risk platforms offer information security certifications like ISO 27001, SOC type 1 & 2, and cyber essentials to ensure your company data is secure.
• Integrated GRC: IT risk management and IT GRC is just one area of risk, look for platforms that offer functionality to manage governance, risk, and compliance across all areas of the business including operational risk, enterprise risk, strategic risk, third-party risk, and overall compliance risk and project management.
• Pricing model: Consider the pricing model of the IT risk platform to ensure it meets your budgetary requirements.
• Good reviews: The best risk management software is highly rated by customers and analysts. For example, the Camms platform was ranked as a strong performer in the recent Forrester Wave^TM Governance Risk & Compliance Platforms, Q3 2024 and is highly rated by customers on G2.

• Poor quality cyber risk data – due to a lack of data governance rules – that is housed in disparate spreadsheets and legacy systems.
• Managing risk data across various forms, spreadsheets, emails, and databases leads to inaccuracies and data entry errors.
• Businesses who don’t use an IT risk management system end up with disparate cyber risk data located in separate spreadsheets – creating siloed data, and an inconsistent cyber risk framework that results in inaccurate cyber risk reporting outputs leading to poor decisions.
• Relying on manual, unautomated processes reduces the speed of cyber risk escalation and risk remediation
• Poor integration between data sources makes it difficult to link cyber and IT risk to the relevant controls in the control library.
• When organizations don’t use a top IT risk management platform, they struggle to compare cyber risk across different sites, departments, and countries due to disparate data and inconsistent cyber risk frameworks.
• If firms are not using a SaaS web-based IT risk management tool, the software won’t receive regular patch updates and releases, meaning the tool could become outdated or lack the latest functionality.