How Can You Conduct A Thorough Security Risk Assessment

Being highly dependent on digital models and devices these days, cyber threats pose great risks to disrupt and damage the security landscape of an organization, thus, badly affecting business operations and reputation.

Surprisingly, with the evolving categories of vulnerabilities, the cyber world is in constant flux as IT systems and data items are always on the knocking side of the malicious actors, looking to exploit vulnerabilities in the security systems through ways to break into the infrastructure of a company.

With hackers seeking to upend the regular operations of an organization through advanced capabilities, there arises a crucial question of whether there is any solution to the uncertain risks?

Security Risk Assessment is answered as one of the effective solutions to apply.

In terms of cybersecurity, risk analysis is that crucial and inevitable activity that stands on top when defining projects and initiatives to improve information security. And among some growing decisive trends to safeguard a business’s digital assets, is the prevalence of security risk assessments.

“It is a key to ensure whether an organization is prepared and protected.”

To get an accurate snapshot of the vulnerabilities that might not prove to be promising in maintaining the confidentiality of your organizational information assets, you need to set appropriate security controls corresponding to your business’s requirements.

Top Tips to Conduct a Successful Security Risk Assessment

Risk = Probability x Impact

#Define the Scope
The first step in conducting the risk analysis is to establish the scope of the study. Defining the scope gets your focus towards the strategic areas on which to improve security has been selected.

On the other hand, it is also possible to define a more limited scope according to departments, processes, or systems. For instance, risk analysis on the processes of the Administration department, risk analysis on the production processes and warehouse management, etc.

#Identify Assets
Once the scope is defined, identify the most critical assets that are related to the department, process, and system under study. Maintaining an inventory of the assets that can be vulnerable is a time-consuming activity but can be eased and streamlined using modern software systems.

#Identify and Analyze Risks
Risk identification involves time and resources that further involve validating the risks of each of the following:

• The asset (value to be protected)
• The threat (that can affect the asset)
• The vulnerability (a weakness that allows the threat to affect the asset)

Threats and vulnerabilities draw a line of difference but you need to consider both as security-critical aspects that need to be taken care of to identify areas that can be exploited for misuse and compromising data integrity and confidentiality.

Analysis of risks is an activity that involves brainstorming how a risk can occur that further requires identifying them in the first place. So to get the knowledge of the vulnerability within your assets, risk treatment is a necessary step to take.

#Assess Risks
Risk assessment is a process that assesses the likelihood of a vulnerability being exploited and assigns it a numerical score that indicates the severity of that vulnerability as per the value and recommends remediation corresponding to it.

At this point, we have the following elements:

• Active’s inventory
• Set of threats to which each asset is exposed
• Set of vulnerabilities associated with each asset (if applicable)
• Set of security measures implemented

With this information, we are in a position to calculate the risk. For each asset-threat pair, we will estimate the probability that the threat will materialize and the business impact that this would produce.

#Treat Risks
On risk calculation, there comes the point to treat the risks that exceed the limits on the risk scale. Risks categorized as high, critical, or medium need immediate attention and remediation while low or informational risks can be taken into account later.

One can manage risks in the following ways:

• Accept the risk
• Implement measures to mitigate them
• Eliminate risks
• Transfer the risks to third parties

#Conduct Regular Visits

• Plan
• Do
• Check
• Act

Risk assessment is a trail of plan-do-check-act (PDCA) and continues to change and recede as per the evolving risks and vulnerabilities. Thus, it becomes mandatory to have regular checks on the security posture of the organization’s infrastructure and revisit risk assessment periodically.

The results must be communicated to the security management team to take timely actions.

Take a Route to Regular Security Risk Assessments with Us!

Security Risk Assessments aid a business to keep timely checks on the security posture and maintenance of its IT network, identifying risks, vulnerabilities, potential threats, and dangers.

In today’s increasingly insecure digital environments, companies small and big must focus on safeguarding their assets by spending budgets intelligently and investing in risk management solutions wisely.

Allow us to align with your vision to safeguard your IT network by applying robust techniques and state-of-the-art IT Security Services to maintain enterprise-wide security throughout your business infrastructure.