Opus and Grant Thornton Team Up to Help Understaffed Risk Departments
New offering tackles third-party risk by combining Opus's Hiperos 3PM SaaS solution with Grant Thornton's consulting know-how
NEW YORK, Oct. 26, 2018 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- Opus, a leading provider of global compliance and risk management solutions, and professional consulting services firm Grant Thornton LLP have jointly launched Opus-GT Assess, an information-security solution that helps risk professionals assess and manage the security posture of third parties.
Opus-GT Assess is ideal for understaffed risk departments that require customized solutions to monitor the third parties that pose business threats.
Opus brings its software as a service (SaaS) platforms and data solutions to the joint offering. Grant Thornton brings consulting experience with client risk management. The resulting solution allows information security officers and their companies to use their existing tools and processes to more efficiently protect and defend against data breaches – while also better complying with regulations and managing pressures like tightening labor markets and shrinking budgets.
According to recent studies by Opus and the Ponemon Institute, 70 percent of security officers call "lack of competent in-house staff" their number one concern this year. And 65 percent cite "inadequate in-house expertise" as the top reason they are likely to have a data breach.
To combat these concerns, Opus and Grant Thornton built Opus-GT Assess on Opus's award-winning Hiperos 3PM InfoSec SaaS platform – a flexible, scalable and auditable platform that was recently recognized by industry analyst GRC 20/20.
"Third parties represent a significant percentage of cyber risk threats companies face," said Adam Schrock, managing director and national Third-Party Risk Management practice leader for Grant Thornton. "Companies often assess only critical suppliers for risk, but data breaches come from many types of vendors with different risk profiles. Monitoring all third parties against your organization's risk methodology is an extremely effective way to manage and contain risk."
The offering provides four primary benefits:
- Efficient and cost-effective third-party assessments
Opus-GT Assess offers customized solutions to monitor the full gamut of third parties that could pose cyber threats to the business. This frees up risk professionals to focus on more strategic tasks and, ultimately, helps mature third-party programs.
- Clear reporting and transparency
Opus-GT Assess shares information on risks with all stakeholders, including vendor relationship managers, executives and boards of directors. It also easily reconstructs risk decisions to demonstrate transparency to regulators.
- Integration that makes critical data actionable
Opus-GT Assess aggregates and integrates data from internal business stakeholders, third-party data and IT risk teams – as well as data from Grant Thornton professionals and providers of risk-ratings data. This helps companies make effective and sound risk decisions quickly.
- Offerings tailored to an organization's own risk methodology and approach
Opus-GT Assess taps into Grant Thornton's standard risk and control frameworks and applies the users' own in-house risk models – allowing organizations to better manage the information security risks of their entire third-party population.
"Third-party risk continues to be the weak link in information security," said Dov Goldman, VP of Innovation. "Even the most mature companies can't prevent all data breaches, but by deploying Opus-GT Assess they can implement solid risk-management programs and multiply their in-house expertise with a scalable, effective and cost-efficient solution. As a result, they can reduce their vulnerabilities."
For more information about Opus-GT Assess, please visit https://www.opus.com/resource/information-security-risk-assessments-simplified/.
About Opus
Opus is a global risk and compliance SaaS and data solution provider, founded on a simple premise: that faster, better decisions in compliance and risk management give businesses an extraordinary advantage in the marketplace.
Today, the world's most respected global corporations rely on Opus to free their business from the complexity and uncertainty of managing customer, supplier and third-party risks.
By combining the most innovative SaaS platforms with unparalleled data solutions, Opus turns information into action so businesses thrive.
For more information about Opus, please visit http://www.opus.com and for Opus's information security solutions, visit http://www.opus.com/infosec.
About Grant Thornton LLP
Founded in Chicago in 1924, Grant Thornton LLP (Grant Thornton) is the U.S. member firm of Grant Thornton International Ltd, one of the world's leading organizations of independent audit, tax and advisory firms. Grant Thornton, which has revenues in excess of $1.7 billion and operates 59 offices, works with a broad range of dynamic publicly and privately held companies, government agencies, financial institutions, and civic and religious organizations.
"Grant Thornton" refers to Grant Thornton LLP, the U.S. member firm of Grant Thornton International Ltd (GTIL). GTIL and the member firms are not a worldwide partnership. Services are delivered by the member firms. GTIL and its member firms are not agents of, and do not obligate, one another and are not liable for one another's acts or omissions.
SOURCE Opus
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