How to Evaluate the Risks Assessment and Treatment of IT

What is an assessment of security risks?

The process of identifying and evaluating risks for assets that could be affected by cyberattacks is known as cybersecurity risk assessment. In essence, you identify threats from both within and without; examine how they might affect things like the integrity, confidentiality, and availability of data; and figure out how much it would cost to suffer a cybersecurity incident. Using this data, you can fine-tune your cybersecurity and data protection measures to your company's actual risk tolerance.

You must respond to three crucial questions in order to begin an IT security risk assessment:

 

1.       What are the data that, in the event of loss or exposure, would have a significant impact on your company's operations? These are your organization's critical information technology assets.

2.       What essential business procedures call for or make use of this data?

3.       What threats might make it harder for those business functions to function?

You are able to begin design strategies once you are aware of what you need to safeguard. But before you spend a penny or an hour of your time implementing a risk-reduction strategy, think about the type of risk you're dealing with, how important it is to you, and whether your approach is the most cost-effective.

The significance of conducting comprehensive IT security assessments on a regular basis developing a solid foundation for business success is aided by conducting comprehensive IT security assessments on a regular basis.

In particular, it gives them the ability to:

Assess potential security partners, Evaluate potential security partners, Establish, maintain, and demonstrate compliance with regulations Accurately forecast future needs.

 

 Explanation of cyber risk (IT risk) definition

According to the Institute of Risk Management, a cyber risk is “any risk of financial loss, disruption, or damage to the reputation of an organization from some sort of failure of its information technology systems.”

Prevent data breaches, choose appropriate protocols and controls to mitigate risks.

 

Cybersecurity risks include:

When taking stock of cyber risks, it is essential to detail the specific financial damage they could cause to the organization, such as legal fees, operational downtime and related profit loss, and lost business due to customer distrust. Hardware damage and subsequent data loss Malware and viruses Compromised credentials Company website failure.

 

 

The four essential components of an IT risk assessment

In a moment, we'll talk about how to evaluate each one, but first, a brief definition for each:

 

Threat: Anything that has the potential to harm an organization's people or assets is a threat. Natural disasters, website failures, and corporate espionage are examples.

A vulnerability is any potential flaw that would permit a threat to cause harm. A vulnerability that can make it possible for a malware attack to succeed, for instance, is out-of-date antivirus software. A vulnerability that increases the likelihood of equipment damage and downtime in the event of a hurricane or flood is a server room in the basement. Disgruntled employees and outdated hardware are two additional examples of vulnerabilities. A list of specific, code-based vulnerabilities is kept up to date in the NIST National Vulnerability Database.

The total damage an organization would suffer if a vulnerability were exploited by a threat is referred to as the impact. A successful ransomware attack, for instance, could result in not only lost productivity and costs associated with data recovery but also the disclosure of customer data or trade secrets, which could result in lost business as well as legal costs and penalties for compliance.

Probability — This is the likelihood that a danger will happen. Usually, it's a range rather than a single number.

Risk = Threat x Vulnerability x Asset. The following equation can be used to understand risk: Despite the fact that risk is represented here as a mathematical formula, it is not about numbers; It is a well-thought-out plan. Take, for instance, the scenario in which you want to determine the level of danger posed by the possibility of a system being hacked. Your risk is high if the asset is crucial and your network is extremely vulnerable (perhaps due to the absence of an antivirus solution and firewall). However, even though the asset is still critical, your risk will be medium if you have strong perimeter defences and a low vulnerability.

 

There is more to this than just a mathematical formula; It is a model for comprehending the connections among the factors that contribute to determining risk:

 

Threat is an abbreviation for "threat frequency," which is the anticipated frequency of an adverse event. One in one million people will, for instance, be struck by lightning in any given year.

The term "the likelihood that a weakness or exposure will be exploited and a threat will succeed against an organization's defences" is abbreviated as "vulnerability."

What is the organization's security environment like? If a breach does occur, how quickly can it be mitigated to avoid disaster? How likely is it that any given employee will pose an internal threat to security control, and how many of them are there?

A security incident's total financial impact is measured by its cost. Hard costs like hardware damage and soft costs like lost business and consumer confidence are included. Other expenses include:

Data loss: The theft of trade secrets could result in your competitors taking your business. Loss of trust and customer attrition could result from the theft of customer information.

System or application downtime: Customers may be unable to place orders, employees may be unable to perform their duties or communicate, and so on if a system fails to perform its primary function.

Legal repercussions: If someone steals data from one of your databases, even if the data isn't particularly valuable, you could be hit with fines and other legal fees because you didn't follow HIPAA, PCI DSS, or other data security regulations.

 

How to conduct a security risk assessment Now, let's go over how to conduct an IT risk assessment.

 

1.       Identify and prioritize assets- Servers, client contact information, confidential documents from partners, trade secrets, and so on are all examples of assets. Keep in mind that what you consider valuable as a technician may not actually be the most valuable for the company. As a result, you must collaborate with management and business users to compile a list of all valuable assets. Collect, if necessary, the following data for each asset:

 

• ·         Software
• ·         Hardware
• ·         Data
• ·         Interfaces
• ·         Users
• ·         Support Personnel
• ·         Mission or Purpose
• ·         Criticality
• ·         Functional requirements
• ·         IT security policies
• ·         IT security architecture
• ·         Network topology
• ·         Information storage protection
• ·         Information flow
• ·         Technical security controls
• ·         Physical security environment
• ·         Environmental security

 

Since most businesses only have a small budget for risk assessment, you will probably only need to cover mission-critical assets for the remaining steps. As a result, you must establish a standard for assessing each asset's significance. The asset's monetary value, legal status, and significance to the organization are common criteria. Use the standard to classify each asset as critical, major, or minor after it has been approved by management and formally incorporated into the risk assessment security policy.

 

2.       Identify Threats- Anything that has the potential to harm your business is a threat. While malware and hackers are probably the first to come to mind, there are many other kinds of threats as well.

Natural catastrophes. Fire, earthquakes, floods, hurricanes, and other natural disasters have the potential to destroy not only data but also servers and appliances. Consider the likelihood of various natural disasters when choosing a location for your servers. For instance, there might be a low chance of tornadoes but a high risk of flooding in your area.

Absence of hardware. The quality and age of the server or other machine determine the likelihood of hardware failure. The likelihood of failure is low for equipment of high quality that is relatively new. However, the likelihood of failure is significantly increased if the equipment is old or comes from a "no-name" vendor. No matter what industry you operate in, you should put this threat on your watch list. It is possible for people to accidentally delete important files, click on a malicious link in an email, or spill coffee on critical systems-hosting equipment.

There are three types of wrongdoing:

When someone damages your business by physically stealing a computer or server, engineering a distributed denial of service (DDOS) attack against your website, or deleting data, they are committing interference.

Your data is stolen through interception.

Impersonation is the misuse of another person's credentials, which are typically obtained through social engineering, brute force, or the dark web.

3.       Identify Vulnerabilities- A weakness that could allow a threat to harm your business is a vulnerability. Analysis, audit reports, the NIST vulnerability database, vendor data, information security test and evaluation (ST&E) procedures, penetration testing, and automated vulnerability scanning tools are all methods by which vulnerabilities can be identified.

 

Don't confine your thinking to software flaws; Additionally, there are human and physical vulnerabilities. Having your server room in the basement, for instance, increases your vulnerability to flooding, and not informing employees about the dangers of clicking on links in emails increases your vulnerability to malware.

 

4.    Controls- To reduce or eliminate the likelihood that a threat will exploit a vulnerability, analyse the controls that are either in place or in the planning stage. Encryption, methods for detecting intrusions, and solutions for identification and authentication are all examples of technical controls. Security policies, administrative actions, and physical and environmental mechanisms are examples of nontechnical controls.

 

Nontechnical and technical controls can be further divided into preventive and detective categories. Preventive controls, as the name suggests, attempt to anticipate and avert attacks; Devices for authentication and encryption are two examples. Detective controls are used to find threats that have already happened or are about to happen; They include intrusion detection systems and audit trails.

 

5.        Determine the Likelihood of an Incident- Consider the type of vulnerability, the capability and motivation of the threat source, and the effectiveness of your controls to determine the likelihood that a vulnerability will actually be exploited. When determining the likelihood of an attack or other adverse event, many organizations use the categories high, medium, and low rather than a numerical score. 

The asset's mission and any processes that are dependent on it; the asset's value to the organization; and the asset's sensitivity. A business impact analysis (BIA) or mission impact analysis report can provide this information. The impact of harm to the organization's information assets, such as loss of confidentiality, integrity, and availability, is quantified or qualitatively assessed in this document. The impact on the system can be graded as high, medium, or low qualitatively.

 

6.        Determine the Level of Risk to the IT System for Each Threat/Vulnerability Pair Prioritize the Information Security Risks

 

The risk-level matrix is a useful tool for estimating risk in this manner. The likelihood that the threat will exploit the vulnerability. The approximate cost of each of these occurrences. The suitability of the planned or existing information system security controls for eliminating or reducing the risk. A probability of 1.0 indicates that the threat will be met; A value of 0.5 is assigned to a medium likelihood; and a 0.1 rating for a low likelihood of occurrence. In a similar vein, the values for a high impact level are 100, a medium impact level is 50, and a low impact level is 10. Risks are categorized as high, medium, or low based on the result of multiplying the threat likelihood value by the impact value.

 

7.        Recommend Controls - Determine the necessary steps to reduce the risk using the risk level as a foundation. For each level of risk, the following are some general guidelines:

 

High: As soon as possible, a plan for corrective action should be created.

Medium: Within a reasonable amount of time, a plan for corrective measures should be developed.

Low: The group must decide whether to take the risk or do something about it.

Be sure to take into account the following when evaluating controls to reduce each risk:

 

Policies of the organization Cost-benefit analysis Operational impact Feasibility Regulatory requirements in effect.

The recommended controls' overall effectiveness, Safety and reliability of the  Document ,the Results ,The development of a risk assessment report is the final step in the risk assessment process. 

This report will help management make good decisions about the budget, policies, procedures, and other things. The report ought to provide a description of the vulnerabilities that correspond to each threat, the assets that are in danger, the impact on your IT infrastructure, the likelihood of occurrence, and the control recommendations.

 

Report on the IT risk assessment- The risk assessment report can point to important steps that can be taken to reduce multiple risks. For instance, taking regular backups and storing them off-site will reduce the likelihood of flooding and accidental file deletion. The associated costs and business justifications for making the investment should be explained in detail at each step.

Always keep in mind that the core of cybersecurity are the enterprise risk management and information security risk assessment processes. The information security management strategy as a whole is built on these processes, which answer questions about which threats and vulnerabilities can cost the company money and how to reduce them.