Enterprise Risk & Compliance

Governance, Risk, Compliance

“Give it to me straight. Are we more at risk or less at risk than last quarter? What has my investment in security done for me? How do I balance what my IT staff are asking for with demands for investment from other areas of the company?”

An effective governance, risk, and compliance program integrates technical risk management and reporting into financial and operational risk management through executive dashboards and reporting mechanisms that support informed strategic thinking. Every business has its own special set of needs focused either on better governance, lessening risk, or complying with requirements. Failure to properly implement these can result in weak management processes, escalating risks, or civil/criminal repercussions for your organization and your senior management team.

JANUS experts focus on all the major standards utilized today. We can help you meet your growing security management needs, put a full program in place to manage risk, or meet the stringent requirements of sometimes complex and daunting regulations. We achieve success for our clients by utilizing our well-tested methodology to:

• Create a governance plan
• Assess enterprise-wide risks
• Identify significant controls already in place and additional ones needed
• Advise management on implementing improved practices
• Evaluate and document controls design, implementation, and effectiveness
• Determine significant deficiencies/material weaknesses in compliance requirements
• Remediate weak controls and security exposures
• Document all results and explain how they directly affect operations if not corrected
• Build sustainability and improvement

JANUS has been assisting clients with information security needs since 1988. We are well known and respected for our objectivity, on-time delivery, and excellence in service. For close to three decades we have worked in concert with many of the most widely recognized government agencies, commercial enterprises, and not-for-profits helping each with governance, risk, and compliance needs.

Developing a mature security program requires a framework of policies, standards or guidelines, procedures upon which employees and vendors can depend and to which they must adhere, reporting to management, and metrics to understand compliance and progress.

Risk Management

Establishing a risk management framework with which your business is comfortable is a critical element of becoming a more mature IT operation. How do you leverage your assets, your people, and your technology in the most effective manner to lessen risk? How do you report on new risks discovered or on remediation efforts? What types of measurements can be applied so that you can determine if there are improvements in your security program?

JANUS will assist you to develop a risk management framework customized for your needs if you do not already have one in place. We can help you to implement the components of the program if you have embarked on a risk management program, and we can design metrics that will support your changing needs and that provide you with early warnings regarding potential risks to your business.

Risk and Risk Management

“We need to focus on what really matters, and stop focusing on being so reactive. We need an organized and realistic approach to reducing risk.” In dealing with information security, however, you need to focus more on how do you manage risk to align with your organizational objectives and specific appetite for risk? What is the framework you utilize to ensure that all of the elements of the risks you face are addressed? What are the supporting mechanisms put in place to carry through the risk management processes? What kind of reports are generated to monitor the results of your risk control practices?

Without these basic building blocks, it is impossible for you to either understand your particular risks or to control information and data risk. JANUS has a long history in carefully assisting our clients to embed risk management principles and supportive processes within their management and governance structures. From this, specific components can be put into place that focus on:

• Identification of specific risks
• Development of a strategy for controlling risk
• Structuring a risk management processes that complies with needs
• Communicating to management and staff
• Developing ongoing risk management processes

JANUS also helps clients develop an appropriate structure to control and manage small risks so that they don’t grow and become major issues. With our staff’s many years of experience focusing on risk we have assisted both very large and small organizations to adjust the concepts of risk management to their size business and their specific needs. JANUS can assist you with:

• Risk assessments
  • A starting point and a periodic manner to measure results of the program
• Developing a risk framework & strategy
  • Understanding what is important to your operation and preparing the skeleton of the program
• Designing your risk management processes
  • Developing the specific methods that support your risk management needs
• Designing security reporting metrics
  • Communicating to management on program results
  • Helping employees understand their responsibilities

IV&V

“No more excuses. No more last-minute surprises. This time our product absolutely needs to be delivered on time, on budget, and deliver the functionality we promised the business owner.”

Independent Verification & Validation (IV&V) is a project management methodology and insurance policy for delivery of on-budget, on-time system development. Many organizations now choose IV&V rather than the older strategy of testing for security and functionality after the product has already been built, investments have already been made, and promised to roll out dates committed. IV&V ensures that product requirements and business expectations are continuously tested and verified throughout the System Development Life Cycle (SDLC), so that there are no surprises when the product is ready to launch.

As specialists in IV&V, JANUS’ highly experienced staff can work with you through either one-time IV&V assessments or ongoing System Development Life Cycle (SDLC) analyses.

Weak application and implementation often result in web applications or major projects that either do not work (as often reported by the media) or can leave major security flaws unchecked and (regularly do) result in data breaches. Such problems affect both the functionality of the application itself as well as the reputation of the application owner or provider. These types of major problems can be avoided by verifying that what designers intend actually occurs.

JANUS’ IV&V process is designed to catch technical design and programming issues before they become business problems. Major problems can be avoided by verifying that what designers intend actually occurs. JANUS’ independent IV&V process is designed to catch these issues before they become critical.

JANUS’ IV&V process is extremely thorough and can even include reviews of the source code (when needed) as well as an examination of the associated product documentation. A JANUS IV&V engagement combines static verification to carefully analyze associated code along with dynamic verification to accomplish an integration assessment that ensures that all software modules mesh as one and to confirm that all of the pieces work properly together. Other types of IV&V testing make sure that the results meet user requirements or that performance is adequate.

Why perform IV&V?

• IV&V testing has been proven to result in lower total costs of ownership over the life of the application
• Integrates with Agile, Waterfall, and Hybrid development methodologies
• Early testing finds issues before they become problems with escalating costs
• Independent testing eliminates one-sided developer control or influence
• Management gains insight into application development/developer quality
• Allows independent results important for any government certification needs
• Brings together any programming style or a mix (Agile, Hybrid, Waterfall) to form a consistent quality check