Threat Sketch
Architect of Predictive Cyber Security Plans

According to a recent report by Accenture, small and mid-sized businesses lose $500,000 on average per cyber attack. This revenue loss doubles when you include lost customers, missed market opportunities, and post-breach incident response. Moreover, any breach in a small company impacts larger organizations with which they are a partner or client. The key is to minimize risks before a breach occurs. So, one might think, “where is the hiccup?” A major setback for a small company who is trying to have a secure environment is that most cyber-risk management solutions available today are designed for very large companies and, global organizations, which do not fit the requirements of smaller firms.

Threat Sketch (ts), a cybersecurity data and analytics company from Winston-Salem, North Carolina, has emerged as the ‘beacon of hope’ for managing risk in small and mid-sized organizations. They are on a mission to help board members and executive leaders of small companies manage cybersecurity at a strategic and business level, just like their big company counterparts. With funding and support through The Department of Homeland Security and CISA’s (Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency) Security and Resilience Challenge award, Threat Sketch offers a robust strategic cyber-risk assessment solution for 37,000 local municipal and county governments. Last year, under a similar award from CISA, Threat Sketch provided a solution scaled for 1.1 million nonprofit organizations. These projects demonstrate Threat Sketch’s ability to provide cyber risk analysis solutions for small organizations on a very large scale. Projects that are a perfect match for insurance companies and large organizations that are at risk due to conducting business with small and medium organizations.

Talking about the concerns of CIOs at large firms exposed to cyber risk through policyholders, Rob Arnold, the CEO of Threat Sketch, says, “Getting board members and the executive team engaged in cyber risk management is the answer to reducing portfolio risk. Our solutions speak their language.”

Getting board members and the executive team engaged in cyber risk management is the answer to reducing portfolio risk. Our solutions speak their language

So how does Threat Sketch accomplish this? The company developed two cyber-risk management tools, ‘ts budget’ and ‘ts decisions’ to help small to mid-sized organizations. These tools empower commercial, non-profit and local government leaders the tools necessary to evaluate cyber risks and thereby make more informed, balanced investments in cybersecurity mitigation. When building ‘ts decisions’, the company saw a large gap in how to communicate mitigation strategies to board members and executives. To fill this gap, Threat Sketch built ‘ts mitigation,’ a database specifically designed to help translate a company’s cyber risk profile into comprehensive, actionable advice that non-technical executives can understand and manage.

Based on the successes of companies using these products, Threat Sketch has proven itself to be one of the most knowledgeable cyber risk management firms in this space. The company serves companies and organizations in all three sectors (non-profit, government, and small businesses) and helps them fortify their cyber infrastructure. The company has also developed a proprietary legal database that goes beyond simple breach notification. ts jurisdiction, a database that maps several dimensions of federal and state laws, helps companies identify data exposures and develop mitigation strategies and reduce potential liabilities. Additionally, based on Threat Sketch’s experience serving on CISA’s Information and Communications Technology (ICT) Supply Chain Risk Management Task Force, the company is planning to build another database—‘ts supply chain’—to match vetted vendors with each mitigation which connects clients with qualified solution providers. Above all, Threat Sketch is on a constant hunt for business partners in the insurance industry to participate in pilot programs, including solutions that improve sales and underwriting, that measure potential liabilities in mergers and acquisitions.