Using the Open FAIR™ Model, Black Kite Becomes First to Automate the Financial Impact of Cyber Attacks for Any Company

VIENNA, VA, September 24, 2019 – No matter how hardened a company’s cyber defenses are, significant risk remains when suppliers and third-party trading partners are attacked and compromised. Today, Black Kite, the only provider of a standards-based external cyber risk assessment platform, unveiled the first-ever automated tool to combine and assess both cyber and financial risk.

Calculating the dollar value of the probable loss caused by an attack on a supplier or partner enables Chief Information Security Officers (CISOs), Chief Risk Officers (CROs) and Chief Financial Officers (CFO) to measure and mitigate cyber risk to business performance.

To measure the potential financial impact (risk) to an organization, Black Kite uses the Factor Analysis of Information Risk (Open FAIR™) Model, the only international standard Value at Risk (VaR) model for cybersecurity and operational risk.

“Incorporating the Open FAIR™ Model into cyber risk assessments enables organizations to effectively quantify the true financial cyber risk to their bottom lines,” said Mohamoud Jibrell, CEO of Black Kite. “Companies now can have a three-dimensional view of the technical, compliance and financial impact of a cyberattack to better understand the full risk relationship with a partner or supplier. For some, the business benefits will outweigh the cyber risks but for others it may not.”

In financial services, for example, CISOs and CROs will be able to show the business that the threat of an attack on a vendor is real and gauge whether the odds are rising or falling. Further, CISOs and CROs can now show the business the financial impact of sharing fewer records with a vendor. The business can then determine which is greater, the reduction in probable costs from an attack on that vendor or the increase in revenue from sharing more records with that vendor.

A company’s vendors have different levels of importance. A vendor that does not have access to any systems or confidential data will have lower risk than that of a vendor that has access to PII data of company employees. The Open FAIR™ model allows Black Kite to give a vendor business impact (Loss Magnitude) in risk calculation – from both the technical and financial perspectives.

“Every dollar spent on cyber risk management is a dollar that can’t be spent growing the business or addressing other organization imperatives,” said Jack Jones, chief risk scientist for RiskLens. “Consequently, cost-effective cyber risk management — knowing what matters most, and getting the best bang for your risk management buck — is a necessary cornerstone of organization success.”

The Open FAIR™ methodology was conceived as a way to provide meaningful measurements to satisfy management’s desire to make effective comparisons and well-informed decisions. Open FAIR™ has become the only international standard Value at Risk (VaR) model for cybersecurity and operational risk.

About Black Kite

Black Kite enables enterprises to assess, prioritize, and address the third-party cyber risk of any company, located anywhere, within 60 seconds. Using easy-to-understand scorecards, we provide standards-based letter grades on various risk categories, along with data on how to mitigate each risk in priority order. Black Kite provides the speed, standards, and substance needed to combat the newest risks and threats facing organizations today. 

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Learn more at www.blackkite.com.