Info-Tech Research Group has officially published the results from its latest report, which claims that deficiencies in controls is increasingly leading to costly breaches, compliance failures, and, in some cases, job loss for IT and risk leaders.
To understand the significance of such a development, we must take into account a fact that, with cyberattacks becoming more sophisticated and regulatory pressures intensifying, many organizations continue to operate in uncertain and volatile conditions with fragmented or outdated IT control frameworks.
More on the same would reveal how, named as Build an Effective IT Controls Register, this particular report outlines a structured, data-driven, and risk-first methodology for designing, implementing, and maintaining IT controls. Complementing this would be the availability of extensive industry analysis and expert insights.
Such a mechanism, like you can guess, should really go the distance to provide a clear, step-by-step framework to help IT and risk leaders strengthen security, improve risk visibility, and simplify compliance in an evolving threat landscape.
Markedly enough, Info-Tech’s research findings identify several key barriers to effective IT controls management, including the complexity of IT environments, lack of specialized expertise, and the challenge of keeping pace with changing regulations. The published results show that many organizations also struggle with a narrow, compliance-focused mindset which overlooks broader risks, particularly when it comes to emerging technologies like AI.
In that respect, Info-Tech’s lowdown lays out a three-phased plan to conceive an effective IT controls register.
Starting from Phase 1, it includes defining organizational goals and mapping current goals. This translates to how IT leaders should begin by establishing clear goals and outcome measures to align IT controls with business priorities. Once they do so, they can create a control taxonomy to ensure consistency, and at the same time, map existing controls for the purpose of evaluating coverage and effectiveness, as well as identifying gaps.
The next step will involve evaluating current and building new controls. Here, IT leaders are advised to work in collaboration with governance and audit teams to assess the adequacy of existing controls, design quality, implementation feasibility, user feedback, and audit findings. After that, new or enhanced controls can be developed to address unmitigated risks, with input coming from end users to further improve practicality and adoption.
The third and final phase mandates the development of a monitoring and reporting plan. You see, IT operations and risk management teams can now create ongoing processes and actionable reporting mechanisms to ensure that controls remain effective at all times. The finalized controls register is then integrated into the broader risk framework to close compliance gaps and support timely breach detection.
“In the midst of exceptional macro uncertainty and with AI and other emerging technologies reshaping IT environments, the old approach of managing risks, which included building IT controls reactively, is no longer enough,” said Anubhav Sharma, a research director at Info-Tech Research Group. “Organizations need a comprehensive, risk-directed, and data-driven controls framework that is proactively developed and evolved in an integrated manner with both IT and Business working together, which will then enable organizations to anticipate and manage new risks before they become insurmountable threats.”
