The Telecommunications sector is characterized by robust competition, vast infrastructure requirements, and very short turnaround times for identifying threats and assessing and mitigating their associated risks in order to minimize network downtime. Organizations in the telecom sector are constantly looking for methods and solutions to streamline their processes as a means of reducing organizational risk.

In addition, telecom firms must comply with regulations set by the Federal Communications Commission, Sarbanes-Oxley, the Gramm-Leach Bliley Act (GLBA) and PCI. The investment necessary to meet these requirements can be significant, and telecom firms can realize substantial benefits by transitioning their risk and compliance efforts into a structured and controlled process.

Challenges for risk management in the telecom industry include:

• Creating a flexible framework to manage both control definition and regulatory requirements with compliance measurements
• Consolidating data from multiple internal systems, departments, third-party software and third-party content providers
• Managing enterprise risks within enormous infrastructures
• Satisfying multiple regulatory bodies and their specific requirements in a consistent and regular manner
• Utilizing the traditional ‘moat and castle’ approach to IT security no longer offers sufficient protection for confidential company and customer information
• Increasing information security demands due to threats related to the organization’s own internal network.
• Detailing metrics for measuring effectiveness in IT performance, change control, security, best practices in IT service management and risk management
• Sustaining risk and compliance programs on an ongoing basis

How Modulo Risk Manager helps telecom organizations address these
risk management challenges:

• Simultaneously assesses compliance with a variety of frameworks and regulations, including COBIT, ISO 17799/ISO 27002, ISO 27001 and SOX
• Supports SB 1388 compliance
• Establishes a resilient IT-GRC business process providing a comprehensive real-time view of risk and compliance across the enterprise, including partners and vendors
• Develops a method for executing cost-effective audits
• Reduces audit silos
• Creates a centralized, easily accessible evidence repository
• Eliminates redundant and unnecessary controls
• Manages security requirements for multiple audits, eliminating redundant costs and unnecessary controls
• Implements a robust operational IT risk program, including automating survey workflow throughout the organization, developing key risk indicators for IT, and assessing threats using COSO and AS/NZ 3460 standard methodologies
• Demonstrates continuous multi-regulatory compliance with a “test once, comply with many” capability, dramatically reducing the cost, quality and cycle time of testing and reporting
• Integrates and automates technical controls by leveraging existing IT investments, by taking in data from vulnerability scanners, CMDBs, IdM systems, segregation of duty systems and other systems to automatically generate reports, drill down to critical controls, and establish priorities based on areas with the highest risk
• Migrates over time to standard control frameworks such as ISO 17799/27001, CobiT, and NIST
• Creates enforceable policies and monitoring controls across functional and geographic boundaries
• Ensures compliance with PCI DSS (Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard)
• Leverages best practices and experience built over thousands of security and compliance projects

To learn more about how Modulo Risk Manager addresses the specific needs of risk management in the telecom industry, contact us now.