Companies like to pretend bad hiring practices are a minor operational issue. A recruiter forgets to follow up. A role stays posted too long. A candidate falls through the cracks. Leadership shrugs and calls it inefficiency.

There is a quiet pattern playing out in boardrooms across America. It is not malicious. It is not incompetent. It is far more dangerous than both.

It is complacency.

Governance, Risk, and Compliance is still treated by too many boards as background noise. A line item. A quarterly checkbox. Something the audit committee handles so the rest of the board can get back to “real business.” That mindset is no longer outdated, it is reckless.

A newly disclosed cyber incident involving Pickett and Associates, LLC—a Tampa-based engineering firm—has brought a stark reminder to corporate boards and risk officers that expanding digital attack surfaces, especially through third parties, can jeopardize national infrastructure and organizational resilience.

In late December, insurance giant Aflac confirmed it will notify roughly 22.65 million individuals that their personal and sensitive information was compromised in a cybersecurity incident first detected in June 2025. The breach, now fully investigated and disclosed by the company, stands as one of the largest insurance-related data incidents in recent memory.

very holiday season, gift cards rise to the top of shopping lists. They are easy, flexible, and feel almost risk-free. No sizing issues. No returns. No awkward receipts. For consumers, they are the safest gift in a rushed season.

For businesses, they are one of the most quietly dangerous products they sell.

Most people look at a headline about faulty medical devices and see a manufacturing error. What they miss is the underlying story about governance, risk, and compliance. The recent FDA alert tied to Abbott’s FreeStyle Libre 3 and Libre 3 Plus sensors is a reminder that GRC isn’t a back-office function. When it fails, the impact reaches real people in real time.

In the world of defense contracting, cybersecurity is no longer an IT problem. It is a contract requirement and a competitive edge. The Department of Defense made that clear with CMMC 2.0, a major update that reshapes how companies protect government data and prove they can be trusted with it. If your business works with the DoD or supports someone who does, this is a critical moment.

For many companies, “the compliance maze” isn’t a metaphor. It’s the daily reality of navigating overlapping regulations, vendor obligations, and shifting expectations for security and transparency. The way out isn’t about ticking more boxes, it’s about reframing compliance as a driver of risk management and business growth.

The biggest threat to a financial firm’s cybersecurity might not be the hackers outside the gate, it’s the vendors already inside. A new wave of regulatory scrutiny, led by the New York Department of Financial Services (NYDFS), signals that weak third-party…

By now, it shouldn’t be surprising to say that ignoring risk management is shortsighted. Yet, many organizations still treat it like a box to check or a budget line to trim. They’ll invest heavily in marketing campaigns, branding initiatives, or technology upgrades that promise speed and growth, while leaving their risk posture to luck. Then, when a data breach, compliance lapse, or system failure happens, it’s labeled “unexpected.”

For years, small and medium-sized businesses have told themselves they were too small to be worth a hacker’s time. That illusion has officially expired. Cybercriminals have shifted their focus downstream, and small businesses are now at the center of a digital storm they were never built to weather.

In early October, Discord disclosed that a third-party vendor supporting its customer service operations had been breached, exposing user data including names, emails, and government ID photos. The contractor, 5CA, provided age-verification services. Attackers accessed internal support systems, stealing images and metadata tied to verification requests.

After years of legal wrangling, Alphabet—the parent company of Google—has emerged from the Justice Department’s antitrust case largely intact. The ruling stops short of breaking the company apart or banning its search dominance outright. But make no mistake, this isn’t a free pass. It’s a warning shot to every company sitting comfortably atop its market.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is preparing to upend one of the most entrenched practices in corporate America: quarterly reporting. SEC Chair Paul Atkins has signaled his intent to fast-track the removal of the decades-old requirement that public companies issue quarterly earnings reports, a change that could redefine how markets, boards, and regulators think about corporate transparency.

After working with dozens of legal firms on GRC modernization, I’ve seen the same pattern: firms that unify risk and compliance processes gain measurable competitive advantages, while those clinging to isolated tools, spreadsheets, and outsourcing fall behind.

Airports are among the most complex infrastructures in modern society. They sit at the intersection of public safety, commerce, global connectivity, and high stakes logistics. Yet recent events show how fragile that complexity truly is, especially when a single vendor or software provider becomes a critical point of failure.

On August 25, 2025, the U.S. government quietly cleared the final hurdle to make the Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification (CMMC) a binding requirement for Department of Defense (DoD) contracts. With this approval, CMMC moves from policy talk to enforceable reality, and it will go live in October 2026.

The legal industry is experiencing growing compliance complexity as firms manage client confidentiality, data protection regulations like GDPR and CCPA, professional conduct rules, cybersecurity mandates, and industry-specific frameworks. This isn’t a crisis—it’s an…

In the fast-moving world of fintech, innovation often outpaces regulation. But recent enforcement actions show that regulators are catching up, and they’re not pulling punches.

Most companies don’t see their GRC platform as a productivity tool that can boost business. That needs to change. In an environment where regulatory complexity is growing and resources aren’t, governance, risk, and compliance systems must do more than just audits. They should be helping you…