Continuous Monitoring: An overview

In February 2024, Montefiore Medical Center in Bronx, New York, was forced to pay a massive $4.75 million in penalties. A U.S. Department of Health and Human Services investigation revealed that a Montefiore employee had stolen and sold the data of more than 12,000 patients. Government investigators alleged that the care provider had been careless in its risk management practices and internal IT controls.

As this case demonstrates, risk management failures can be costly. Whatever their industry, businesses need to protect themselves from exposure to risks that could hurt them financially (and in other ways, such as damaged reputation). With threats arising and evolving by the minute, relying on quarterly risk reviews is like using a paper map in a GPS world. Continuous risk monitoring empowers risk and fraud professionals to proactively manage risk and preventing fraudulent activities and other dangers before they happen.

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What is continuous risk monitoring?

How risk monitoring works in practice

Building a continuous monitoring strategy

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What is continuous risk monitoring?

Continuous risk monitoring is the real-time process of identifying, assessing, and mitigating risks before they seriously damage an organization’s operations, profitability, reputation, or regulatory compliance. This process involves collecting and analyzing data gathered from automated feeds in real time. This data typically includes cybersecurity alerts, financial metrics, key risk indicators, and customer behavior.

To many, this may sound like standard risk assessment. But a risk assessment typically occurs at a particular point in time and relies on historical data for its insights. Continuous monitoring, as the term suggests, is an ongoing process that gathers and analyzes current as well as past data. As a result, it permits organizations to detect new or changing risks as they arise.

Continuous risk monitoring doesn’t replace “traditional” risk assessment procedures. A rigorous risk assessment remains the first step in identifying potential dangers. What continuous monitoring delivers is an up-to-the-minute evaluation of these risks. It can also reveal problems requiring a deep-dive assessment.

Benefits of continuous risk monitoring

Real-time risk monitoring helps companies detect fraud behavior patterns with greater confidence. By reducing reliance on manual means, it allows for improved accuracy and proactive risk mitigation.

These benefits also provide competitive advantages:

• Faster risk decision-making
• Greater operational resilience
• Enhanced customer trust and brand reputation

How risk monitoring works in practice

Businesses can begin by determining which risks require continuous monitoring. Distinguishing high-priority and low-priority risks is crucial for any business but especially for companies with limited resources of time, money, and personnel. Higher-priority risks are those that are most likely to develop into full-blown threats—dangers that could significantly damage an organization’s operations and profitability.

Some of the chief risk factors that businesses focus on are both internal and external. They include changes in customer preferences and demand, supply costs, government regulations, and macroeconomic trends. Companies also monitor extreme weather incidents, competitors’ activities, and potentially disruptive geopolitical events.

Use cases for continuous risk monitoring

There are several key use cases for continuous risk monitoring:

• Fraud detection. Fraud is by its nature a clandestine activity. Often, it doesn’t occur suddenly, in a single event, but over time. Continuous monitoring can reveal ongoing actions by customers and third parties that require deeper scrutiny. It also can uncover evolving insider threats.
• Third-party risk management. This is essential not only because vendors can be a source of fraud risks. Supply chain disruptions can hinder a business’s operations and profitability.
• Regulatory compliance. Many companies need to monitor new laws and regulations to prevent potential noncompliance. Continuous monitoring also can bolster compliance reporting that documents an organization’s adherence to requirements such as federal know-your-customer and anti-money laundering regulations.
• Identifying operational issues that could hurt a company’s performance. These include gaps or weaknesses in financial controls, as well as cybersecurity vulnerabilities that could result in data breaches and malware infestation.

Strategies for continuous risk monitoring

Organizations have available a number of strategies to conduct continuous risk monitoring:

Artificial intelligence

AI tools automate and streamline risk management workflows, including data collection, background checks, document verification, and the ongoing monitoring of a customer’s or a vendor’s online activities. With its advanced analytical and predictive capabilities, AI can help businesses prioritize potential risks that might require further investigation and mitigation.

Biometrics

This term refers to measurable human biological and behavioral characteristics that can quickly verify a person’s identity. It also describes automated methods that recognize individuals based on those characteristics.

Behavioral analytics

Behavioral analytics is the process of tracking, measuring, and analyzing user actions on digital platforms. Through the use of biometric technology, organizations can monitor customers, vendors, and employees to detect deviations from their typical online behaviors. These anomalies could signal fraudulent actions such as account takeovers and cyber-attacks.

Alert systems

A risk monitoring alert system uses real-time data to continuously track potential risks and deliver timely notifications when it identifies a potential threat. Automated logging and assignment of alerts generates a clear audit trail for an organization’s risk and fraud teams.

Building a continuous monitoring strategy

Implementing an effective continuous monitoring strategy includes:

• Establishing a comprehensive risk framework aligned with business goals. This framework should detail processes, methodologies, and tools for identifying, assessing, and monitoring risks.
• Integrating AI-powered technology for data collection and risk analysis. Automated systems can streamline data collection processes that minimize dependence on manual efforts—and the risk of missing potential threats.
• Regularly reviewing risk indicators and risk factors to re-evaluate existing threats and incorporate new ones. This review should keep close track of emerging technologies, regulatory changes, and evolving market conditions, as well as newer digital threats such as clickjacking.
• Fostering a risk-aware culture. Focusing on training and educating employees on continuous monitoring and their role in identifying and reporting risks.

Keeping on top of fraud and other risks

Businesses that conduct continuous risk monitoring aren’t only more compliant and more secure. They’re also more operationally resilient, and they’re more trusted by customers and other stakeholders.

Building and maintaining a continuous risk monitoring strategy requires deep expertise and constant vigilance. Thomson Reuters Risk & Fraud Solutions simplifies this process by automating risk assessments, surfacing real-time insights, and maintaining audit-ready compliance documentation. These capabilities can help a company’s risk management team to stay ahead of threats of all kinds, and from all kinds of sources.

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