Plymouth Industrial REIT, Inc. - (PLYM)

10-K Filing Date: February 22, 2024
ITEM 1C. CYBERSECURITY

Cybersecurity Risk Management and Strategy

We have developed and implemented a cybersecurity risk management program intended to protect the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of our critical systems and information.

We design and assess our program based on the National Institute of Standards and Technology Cybersecurity Framework (NIST CSF and AI Risk Management Framework). This does not mean that we meet any particular technical standards, specifications, or requirements, but only that we use the NIST CSF as a guide to help us identify, assess, and manage cybersecurity risks relevant to our business.

Information about cybersecurity risks and our risk management processes is collected, analyzed and considered as part of our overall enterprise risk management (“ERM”).

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Key components of our cybersecurity risk management program include:

risk assessments designed to help identify cybersecurity risks to our critical systems, information, services, and our broader enterprise IT environment;
a security team principally responsible for managing (1) our cybersecurity risk assessment processes, (2) our security controls, and (3) our response to cybersecurity incidents;
the use of external service providers, where appropriate, to assess, test or otherwise assist with aspects of our security processes;
cybersecurity awareness training of our employees, incident response personnel and senior management;
a cybersecurity incident response plan that includes procedures for responding to cybersecurity incidents; and
a third-party cyber risk management process for vendors including, among other things, a security assessment and contracting program for vendors based on their risk profile.

At this time, we have not identified risks from known cybersecurity threats, including as a result of any prior cybersecurity incidents, that have materially affected us, including our operations, business strategy, results of operations, or financial condition. We face certain ongoing risks from cybersecurity threats that, if realized, are reasonably likely to materially affect us, including our operations, business strategy, results of operations, or financial condition. See “Risk Factors

- We face risks associated with security breaches through cyber-attacks, cyber intrusions, as well as other significant disruptions of our information systems.”

Cybersecurity Governance

Our Board of Directors recognizes the critical importance of maintaining the trust and confidence of our tenants, business partners, investors, and employees. Our Board of Directors considers cybersecurity risk as part of its risk oversight function and has delegated to the Cybersecurity Committee (“Committee”) oversight of cybersecurity and other information technology risks. The Committee oversees management’s implementation of our cybersecurity risk management program.

The Committee receives regular presentations and reports on cybersecurity risks, which address a wide range of topics including recent developments, evolving standards, vulnerability assessments, third-party and independent reviews, the threat environment, technological trends, and information security considerations. The Committee also receives prompt and timely information regarding any cybersecurity incident that meets established reporting thresholds, as well as ongoing updates regarding any such incident until it has been addressed. The Committee provides regular reports to our Board of Directors and provides our Board of Directors with timely updates regarding any ongoing cybersecurity incident. On an annual basis, our Board of Directors and the Committee discuss our approach to cybersecurity risk management with members of our management’s cybersecurity committee.

Our management cybersecurity committee, led by our CFO and Director of Information Technology, are responsible for assessing and managing our material risks from cybersecurity threats. The team has primary responsibility for our overall cybersecurity risk management program and supervises both our internal cybersecurity personnel and any retained external cybersecurity consultants. Our Director of Information Security has served in various roles in information technology and information security for over 20 years. Our managed service provider has over 20 years of experience managing multi-national IT operations, including strategy, applications, infrastructure, information security, support, and execution.

Our management cybersecurity committee is informed about and monitors the prevention, detection, mitigation, and remediation of cybersecurity risks and incidents through various means, which may include, among other things, briefings with internal security personnel, threat intelligence and other information obtained from governmental, public or private sources, including external consultants engaged by us, and alerts and reports produced by security tools deployed in our IT environment.

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