Performing information security risk assessments means halfway through your robust security program. Because with a proper risk assessment comes more robust policies and procedures that will surely fit what your system needs.
What are information security risk assessments? How can conduct one more efficiently? Read on to learn more in this post.
Information Security Risk Assessments
An information security risk assessment is essential in keeping cybersecurity operations to their utmost state. This assessment aims to see through all your assets and their threats. Basing on the assessment, necessary rules and protocols will be made to cater to the risks.
Why is it important?
Seeing the organization’s networks and systems in a holistic viewpoint is helpful in developing more robust security measures. For example, its vulnerabilities, strengths, and immunity to attacks.
So basically, an information security risk assessment can help you see your system in the cyber criminal’s eye. By doing so, putting on necessary security controls should follow easier. Not to mention it mitigates the impact of the risks and the likelihood of it from happening.
Besides, knowing defects early on can save you time and costs more efficiently. Knowing app vulnerabilities can help you fix them early. Thus avoiding the unnecessary downtime it may bring in the future, perhaps.
6 Basic Steps of an Information Security Risk Assessment
Below are the basic six steps of conducting an information security risk assessment.
For example:
- Identification & documentation of assets and their vulnerabilities
- Identification & documentation of threats (external and internal)
- Understanding threat and vulnerability from external sources
- Assessing the likelihood and impact of these threats in an organization
- Determining risks of the enterprise through these vulnerabilities, threats, and their likelihood of occurring
- Identifying and prioritizing risk responses
Risk assessments involve a lot of analysis through identification and research from the data gathered. Thus coming up with a more efficient and tailored decision comes easier it being data-driven in the first place.
How to Drive Effective Information Security Risk Assessments
Merely conducting risk assessments is not enough for optimum cyber safety. So here are two tips that should help every risk assessment be more effective.
1. Be Specific With Your Policies & Processes
After completing a risk assessment, the risk assessor will then suggest necessary policies. Make sure to make the best of them. As far as it permits, be specific as possible.
Remember, how you structure your information security policy determines your security maturity. It affects how your employees deal with data and it impacts your customers. Not to mention, your very reputation.
Besides, being the most efficient in every security policy will not only affect the future system. But it can also help future assessments be more effective also.
2. Implementation More Than Documentation
Good documentation of policies will serve you well. But only when it is properly implemented.
Being strong in the paper does not prove a strong information security posture. Documentation cannot protect you from threats and viruses, of course.
So it is vital for you to continually assess how the employees are doing with information security. Perhaps closely monitoring the training and awareness programs can greatly help.
