External risks associated with digital technology are typically characterized by what?

• A. They are always within your control
• B. Often outside of your control and require more work to protect against
• C. Limited to hardware failures
• D. Easily predictable and preventable

Answer: (B)

External risks from digital technology come from outside your organization and require ongoing effort to guard against. Because they originate externally—such as breaches or outages in third-party services, supply-chain issues, regulatory changes, cybercrime campaigns targeting partners, or natural disasters—you can’t rely on internal controls alone to prevent them. Protecting against these risks means building layered defenses, practicing strong vendor risk management, keeping contracts with security expectations, maintaining continuous monitoring, and having robust incident response, backup, and disaster recovery plans. This approach acknowledges that while you can reduce risk, you often can’t eliminate it entirely, so preparedness and resilience are essential.