Effective Security Risk Management

Security Risk Management (SRM) is the most important phase of your security program. When we talk about security and information, we think of all the security measures that are involved and the people who are responsible for them. That may sound like an oxymoron, but SRM includes the people, the programs, the tools and the techniques involved in the entire process. The result of this Identify Stage is to identify your highest priority security risks and evaluate any controls that you have in place already to mitigate these risks.

Identify and eliminate any threat to your information, systems, networks or assets that are currently existing in your company and not currently being managed.

Identify Vulnerabilities

Identify, resolve and eliminate vulnerabilities or threats to your network or information system. Implement a strategy to prevent and mitigate the risk of attack against your information system. Use the appropriate tools to detect and resolve security problems and make sure that they are solved.

Identify the cause of the problem. Once identified, the solution to the problem must be implemented. Some security issues cannot be resolved internally, because they have been identified, while other issues may be solved by another security measure or process. A company must identify the source of their security risks so that a solution can be found that will not only address the current problems but also to prevent future security issues from occurring.

Risk Priority

Determine which security risk is the highest priority and prioritize it for resolution. High priority security risks are those that are more likely to affect you and your business. By prioritizing high priority security threats, you can work on them quickly and prevent them from becoming significant problems. A company’s priorities are based on the amount of risk to their data, system, network or assets, as well as the severity of that risk. Your security risk management department should be responsible for identifying and assigning a high priority security risk.

Reduce the impact of a security risk by addressing the sources of the risk. One common cause of security risk is an improper implementation or poor configuration of processes. When you are implementing an application or procedure, consider if you need to upgrade existing procedures to be able to accommodate new technology, or if your application or procedure may need to be enhanced to make it more secure. Consider any changes that may be needed to your existing procedures to reduce security risk, such as changing default passwords, limiting access to important systems, or securing user accounts.

Reduce Risk

Reduce your risk. Identifying the riskiest parts of your business can help identify possible solutions and ways to reduce them. For example, identifying a weak link in the data centre might be the source of a security problem; identifying weaknesses in security in your application or procedures can be used as a way to improve security; identifying weak points in your business networks might be an area that needs to be further improved.

Finally, identify the root cause of the problem, meaning the root cause of your business. Define the solution to the root cause, to reduce it and the effect that the solution will have on your business. Define how the proposed solution will help your organization improve its ability to identify and reduce your risk in the future.

Assess Effectiveness

Assess the effectiveness of your current security risk management program. An effective security risk management program identifies the sources of your security risk and identifies what actions need to be taken to address those sources. This can include implementing the appropriate software and/or application monitoring programs and implementing security measures such as firewalls, password controls and secure data storage and retrieval.

Implement

Implementing a complete security risk management system should include reporting capabilities and reporting requirements. The reporting capability helps your team to evaluate the status of your security risk and implement corrective measures. Your security risk management report will contain security risk assessments, vulnerability assessments, risk management reports, and mitigation techniques and solutions. The reporting requirements will include such information as security risk assessment results, risks, solutions and security risk management policies, procedures and training requirements.

Implementing a security risk management program will ensure that your organization is prepared to identify, assess, and remedy the problems and issues associated with a security risk. The risk identification will help identify sources of the security risk and determine the most appropriate solutions. And the implementation of the most appropriate solutions will increase your organization’s productivity and allow your business to run smoothly.