If you’ve been exploring X-Analytics to manage your cybersecurity program more effectively and communicate the value of your efforts to the wider business, you likely have a good understanding of what X-Analytics can bring to your organization.  With X-Analytics, you can benchmark your cyber risk management progress, prioritize the most effective initiatives and communicate the business value of your cyber strategy to the wider business.

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But what if we told you there is so much more to X-Analytics than what meets the eye? 

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This article highlights some of the powerful capabilities our CISO customers use to achieve success with X-Analytics.

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Conduct what-if scenario planning

We haven’t invented a crystal ball for you to see the future (yet!), but we have built scenario planning into X-Analytics, which we think is the next best thing. 

As a CISO, you often end up stuck in a chicken-and-egg situation when it comes to securing investment for your cyber risk program. You need the investment in order to implement new measures, but also need to prove the value that these initiatives will deliver for the business before you can secure the investment. 

That’s where scenario planning fits in. Simply highlight a risk area and input the details of your proposed mitigation strategy - from there X–Analytics will highlight the impact you can expect in monetary terms. You can also conduct scenario planning to plan for changes in your business. Whether you’re forecasting future years, or preparing for an acquisition, you are able to map out different strategies and priorities to ensure you’re investing in the right places. You can also use this to highlight the ROI of your program to other key stakeholders, including the CFO. 

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Benchmarking and goal-setting 

Sometimes you need to step back and gain perspective before deciding what to do next. It’s all too easy to become absorbed in incremental improvements that you lose sight of your current risk condition and where you are on your journey. By benchmarking your risk against similar businesses, you can see where you stand today, and where you need to focus your efforts tomorrow.

By aggregating and analyzing numerous data sources, including open source data and industry information, X-Analytics allows you to establish measurable goals, whether you’re looking to achieve ‘good enough’ or implement an industry-leading program.

One of the biggest wins of this X-Analytics capability is that it allows you to establish a cyber risk baseline in a matter of hours, with ease. Without X-Analytics, you likely have to rely on in-house developed approaches built with Excel and individual opinion that can consume several weeks of your team’s time, or bring in an external auditor that could cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, leaving you (and the wider business) wondering if the juice was really worth the squeeze. 

Once you’ve established this baseline you can align your day-to-day actions and priorities with specific business goals and track incremental progress as you go. 

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To mitigate, manage, or transfer, that is the question. 

While it’s possible you may not be involved directly in insurance decisions, it’s worthwhile knowing how your insurance would perform, should the worst happen, to guide your risk mitigation efforts most effectively. 

In an ideal world, you’d be able to mitigate all of your cyber risks completely, so you’d know you were completely protected from any incidents. But in reality, this isn’t going to happen. So you need to make some decisions. What risks do you need to mitigate, which ones can you manage and accept a level of residual risk and which ones do you need to cover with your cyber insurance policy? 

By considering your current coverage, X-Analytics highlights where you might be exposed to cyber threats which are not addressed in your risk mitigation program or covered by your insurance provider. With this insight, you can decide whether you need to mitigate the risk, or increase your insurance coverage to include it. 

In this way, X-Analytics give you a comprehensive view of your risk exposure, so you can ensure you have your bases covered, whether that’s by mitigating, managing or transferring the risk. 

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Assess and manage 3rd party risk

When it comes to cybersecurity (and most things in life) it’s not, unfortunately, all about you. Since the SolarWinds cyber attack in 2020, the need to manage third-party risk has become more apparent, but doing so isn’t always straightforward. 

Unlike other third-party risk management solutions, X-Analytics takes your unique relationship with your providers into consideration. You’re able to go beyond the headline facts and figures and understand your total third party exposures, what risk this poses to your business and where in your supply chain this exposure lies. This will ensure you don’t have any blind spots when making business-critical decisions.

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Highlighting the business value of cybersecurity

X-Analytics is more than just a piece of software, it’s an essential part of your business. Whether you need to be able to communicate the impact of your cybersecurity program, understand where you should be focussing your efforts, or managing your broader cyber risk - X-Analytics is like your organized, objective, and efficient right-hand man, ready to assist you in highlighting the value of cybersecurity, as you work to protect your business. 

If you’re ready to see X-Analytics in action and discover how it can support your work and your business, book a demo with our team of experts.