Introducing BALLAST 5.0

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

The highly anticipated BALLAST 5.0 release delivers a new grid view interface that will rev-up the risk assessment process by providing enhanced usability and results in record time.

NASHVILLE, TENNESSEE – May 12, 2020. BALLAST, an online risk and compliance platform affiliated with the LBMC family of companies, is pleased to announce the major release of version 5.0, featuring an innovative new grid view that is going to revolutionize the way users manage online risk assessments.

Launched in 2017, over 300 organizations now rely on BALLAST for their internal and vendor risk assessments. The 5.0 release continues to demonstrate BALLAST’s commitment to helping customers simplify the risk assessment process, by revving up the risk assessment process with a new interface that makes managing and taking risk assessments even easier.

BALLAST’s new grid view provides users with the ability to filter and search for specific controls, make assignments and select answers right from the assessment grid, with no drill down – saving time. Further, convenient icons located on the grid allow users to quickly view guidance, add comments and attachments, and see which controls have been flagged for remediation.

The BALLAST 5.0 release includes the following new features and enhancements:

Enhanced Assignment Functionality. Administrators can quickly filter on control area or theme (e.g., Asset Management) to quickly assign related controls to subject matter experts.

Streamlined Assessment Interface. Users can filter on control area or theme when taking assessments. Convenient icons allow users to quickly view guidance, as well as add comments and attachments.

Enhanced Search Capabilities. A new search bar on the assessment grid makes it easy for users to enter keywords to quickly find specific controls to add comments or attach evidence.

Filter by Control Area or Theme. Filter controls related to an area or theme (e.g., Asset Management) to quickly retrieve the set of controls you need at the click of a button, so that you can review them by area or forward to a subject matter expert.

Improved Risk Analysis. Grid view features a consolidated view of all threats and their control implementation score (the percentage of controls answered “fully in place”), to provide administrators better visibility into how controls were answered to inform their selection of likelihood and impact of the threat event during risk analysis.

View Flagged Remediations. Visible red flags on the grid, make it easy to see which controls require remediation. Administrators can simply click on the red flag to review and assign the remediation for follow-up.

These new features and enhancements are immediately available and further automate the risk assessment process for BALLAST customers to help them identify, analyze and manage security risk in a better way.

BALLAST was developed by a team of risk and security professionals, who have performed hundreds of risk assessments over the years. They know how difficult and time consuming it can be to manage the process with traditional tools. Spreadsheets and PDFs are insecure and inflexible, while GRC solutions are too complex, with long implementation timelines. So, they took it upon themselves to reimagine the risk assessment process and have designed a tool that can be rapidly deployed and is simple to use, flexible and scalable.

“We continue to evolve BALLAST to provide customers with the most streamlined assessment experience possible. BALLAST seeks to simplify the risk assessment process and deliver better risk assessment results in less time. Unlike other platforms, BALLAST provides rich assessment and compliance functionality without the complexity of most GRC tools,” said Mark Fulford, founder and shareholder at LBMC. “With this new release, we are reinforcing to our customers that online risk assessments do not have to be overly complicated to deliver powerful results.”

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