Executive Summary 

In "The Best of the Best of 2024," BugZero curates a selection of insightful retrospectives from industry leaders, including McKinsey & Company, ServiceNow, Hogan Lovells, Lloyd's, and PwC, offering valuable perspectives on IT risk management, operational resilience, and compliance. Additionally, BugZero organizes its own 2024 blog posts by topics such as Operational Resilience, the Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA), IT Service Management (ITSM), Strategic IT Leadership, and Third-Party Risk Management, providing readers with a comprehensive resource to navigate the evolving challenges in the IT landscape. 

The flood of 2024 “best of” and retrospectives can get a bit overwhelming – so we thought we’d offer an alternative – a “best of the best” where we’ve done some of the vetting for you to call out some of the 2024 retrospectives that we’ve found insightful. This is by no means exhaustive, but we hope that you’ll agree that all of these are worth a slice of your valuable time.  

We’ve also included a second list that is not a “best of” – we can’t have a favorite child!  We’ve organized our 2024 blog posts into categories to make it easier for you to “double-click” on topics of interest and to skip right over topics that don’t grab your fancy. We covered quite a lot of ground in 2024 – enjoy! 2025 is going to be a blast!  

1. Year in Review (by McKinsey & Company) McKinsey provides a comprehensive analysis of global business trends, offering valuable insights into the evolving landscape of digital transformation and risk management. 

2. FCA's Observations and Lessons Learnt from the July 2024 Global IT Incident (by Hogan Lovells) This publication delves into the Financial Conduct Authority's analysis of a significant IT incident, highlighting lessons in risk management and regulatory compliance. 

3. 2024 Lloyd's Operational Resilience Self-Assessments Observations Report (this is a downloadable pdf)  Lloyd's presents findings from operational resilience self-assessments, offering insights into best practices and areas for improvement within the industry. 

4. Global Digital Trust Insights (by PwC) PwC's report explores the state of digital trust worldwide, discussing key challenges and strategies in cybersecurity and regulatory compliance. 

Here is a selection of posts from 2024. Believe it or not, we’ve got even more! Checkout the full directory of posts at BugZero’s Blog Landing Page. For now, check out our curated collection by topic. 

• Is Your Cure Worse Than The Disease? Explores the unintended consequences of security patches and how to mitigate risks associated with them.  

• Part 1: CrowdStrike Outage Exposes Critical Gap in IT Operational Resilience Analyzes a major outage and its implications for operational resilience strategies.  

• Part 2: The New Standard in IT Risk Mitigation Discusses proactive measures to enhance IT risk mitigation in light of recent incidents.  

• Today’s Third-Party Bugs are Tomorrow’s Operational Incidents Highlights the importance of managing third-party software bugs to prevent operational disruptions.  

• Residual Risk: Seeing The Forest Through The Trees Explores the importance of balancing both security and non-security threats within operational risk management. 

• Building the Business Case for BugZero: A GRC Approach to Third-party Software Risk and Resilience Outlines how BugZero aligns with GRC principles to manage third-party software risks effectively.  

• Operational Resilience: Regulations Around the World Provides an overview of global regulations impacting operational resilience and how organizations can comply.  

• Key Takeaways From the ESAs Report on Critical TPP Criteria Summarizes essential points from the European Supervisory Authorities' report on critical third-party provider criteria.  

• Northern Exposure: OSFI's Guidance on Third-Party Software Risk Examines the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions' (OSFI) guidelines for managing third-party software risks, emphasizing the importance of proactive risk management, continuous monitoring, and comprehensive incident reporting to ensure the resilience of Canada's financial infrastructure. Topic: Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA) 

• The Waiting Is Over: These Hidden Risks Weaken Operational Resilience and Undermine DORA Compliance (GUEST BLOG) Discusses the imminent enforcement of the Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA) on January 17, 2025. 

• Embracing DORA in 2025: Navigating the New Era of Digital Operational Resilience in the Financial Sector  Discusses the impending enforcement of the Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA) on January 17, 2025, and its implications for the EU financial sector's preparedness against ICT disruptions and cyber threats. 

• Key DORA Act Insights: What You Missed in Our New Whitepaper Highlights important aspects of the Digital Operational Resilience Act.  

• Getting More Value from Your CMDB with BugZero Discusses how BugZero enhances the Configuration Management Database to improve IT service management.  

• What is a Bug Risk Score & How Do We Calculate It? Explains how BugZero quantifies the severity of software bugs using a 0-10 scale, leveraging data from the Operational Defect Database (ODD) and AI technologies to help organizations prioritize critical issues effectively. Topic: Strategic IT Leadership 

• Navigating In-House and Third-Party Software: A Strategic Approach for Enterprise IT Leaders Offers guidance for IT leaders on managing both in-house and third-party software to achieve organizational objectives.  

• Digital Safety and Developer Liability: The Fourth Foundational Pillar of EU Digital Governance Discusses the EU's forthcoming Directive on Liability for Defective Products, which aims to hold software developers accountable for defects, thereby adding digital safety as a new pillar alongside privacy, security, and resilience in the EU's digital governance framework. Topic: Third-Party Risk Management 

• Effective Risk Management of Third-party Bugs Explores strategies for managing risks associated with third-party software bugs to maintain operational integrity.  

• Managing Third-party Bug Risk with ITIL, ISO/IEC 27005, and COBIT Examines how BugZero integrates with industry standards to manage third-party bug risks effectively.  

We encourage you to explore these insightful retrospectives and our comprehensive analyses to stay informed and prepared for the evolving challenges in IT risk, compliance, and operational resilience.