Develop and Implement a Security Risk Management Program
With great risk management comes a great security program.
- To build an information security program, the organization must have a strong understanding of the risks it faces to help prioritize the controls or initiatives.
- Security risk is often difficult for business leaders to understand, as it falls out of the realm of their typical expertise.
- There is no one universal framework or methodology that can be used when it comes to risk management.
- Much of assessing and managing risk comes from making assumptions around certain threats, which are often weakly informed.
Our Advice
Critical Insight
- The best security programs are built on defensible risk management. These can ensure security decisions are made based on risk reduction benefit instead of frameworks alone.
- All risks can be quantified and incorporated into Info-Tech’s defensible model.
- Security risk management allows organizations to go from security uncertainty to saying confidently whether or not they are providing the correct level of security.
Impact and Result
- Develop a security risk management program to properly assess and manage the risks that affect your information systems.
- Tie together all the aspects of your risk management program, including your information security risk tolerance level, threat and risk assessments, and mitigation effectiveness models.
- Move away from framework-driven security programs and build a program that is based on the unique risk profile of your organization.
- Use Info-Tech’s Security Risk Register Tool to track all the different threats to the organization and understand what is above or below an acceptable level of risk.
Member Testimonials
After each Info-Tech experience, we ask our members to quantify the real-time savings, monetary impact, and project improvements our research helped them achieve. See our top member experiences for this blueprint and what our clients have to say.
Client
Experience
Impact
$ Saved
Days Saved
Multnomah County
Workshop
9/10
$117K
N/A
Relevant information that was presented well. Nothing bad.
Workshop: Develop and Implement a Security Risk Management Program
Workshops offer an easy way to accelerate your project. If you are unable to do the project yourself, and a Guided Implementation isn't enough, we offer low-cost delivery of our project workshops. We take you through every phase of your project and ensure that you have a roadmap in place to complete your project successfully.
Module 1: Establish the Risk Environment
The Purpose
- Build the foundation needed for a security risk management program.
- Define roles and responsibilities of the risk executive.
- Define an information security risk tolerance level.
Key Benefits Achieved
- Clearly defined roles and responsibilities.
- Defined risk tolerance level.
Activities
Outputs
Define the security executive function RACI chart.
- Defined roles and responsibilities for the risk executive
Assess your organizational risk culture.
Perform a cursory assessment of management risk culture.
Standardize impact terminology.
- Standardized impact terminology to be used throughout the risk model
Define frequency or impact thresholds outside of individual risk tolerance level.
- Defined frequency and impact thresholds to be used throughout the risk model
Evaluate risk scenarios to determine your micro risk tolerance level.
Optimize the sensitivity of your screening test.
Decide on a custom weighting.
Finalize the risk tolerance level.
- Defined risk tolerance level
Define macro risk tolerance level.
Module 2: Conduct Threat and Risk Assessments
The Purpose
- Determine when and how to conduct threat and risk assessments (TRAs).
- Complete one or two TRAs, as time permits during the workshop.
Key Benefits Achieved
- Developed process for how to conduct threat and risk assessments.
- Deep risk analysis for one or two IT projects/initiatives, as time permits.
Activities
Outputs
Determine when to initiate a risk assessment and which project/initiative will be assessed.
- Established criteria for when to conduct risk assessments
Review appropriate data classification scheme.
Identify system elements and perform data discovery.
- Defined scope of the threat and risk assessment
Map data types to the elements.
Identify STRIDE threats and assign rankings.
- Identified threats to the particular project and defined current severity level
Determine risk actions taking place and assign countermeasures.
- Defined actions to review and/or reduce risk
Calculate mitigated risk severity based on actions.
- Defined mitigated risk severity level
Review results and form risk-based decisions.
- Final decisions made based upon the final risk assessment results
Module 3: Build a Security Risk Register
The Purpose
- Collect, analyze, and aggregate all individual risks into the security risk register.
- Plan for the future of risk management.
Key Benefits Achieved
- Established risk register to provide overview of the organizational macro risk level.
- Ability to communicate risk to other stakeholders as needed.
Activities
Outputs
Begin building a risk register.
- Established risk register document
Identify risks and threats that exist in the organization.
- Identification of risks beyond that of the TRAs alone
Identify which stakeholders sign off on each risk.
Review the aggregate risk level of the entire organization.
- Understanding of the aggregate level of risk
Act upon risk results, depending on the aggregate level as it relates to the risk tolerance.
If necessary, revisit risk tolerance.
Plan for the future of risk management.
About Info-Tech
Info-Tech Research Group is the world’s fastest-growing information technology research and advisory company, proudly serving over 30,000 IT professionals.
We produce unbiased and highly relevant research to help CIOs and IT leaders make strategic, timely, and well-informed decisions. We partner closely with IT teams to provide everything they need, from actionable tools to analyst guidance, ensuring they deliver measurable results for their organizations.
What Is a Blueprint?
A blueprint is designed to be a roadmap, containing a methodology and the tools and templates you need to solve your IT problems.
Each blueprint can be accompanied by a Guided Implementation that provides you access to our world-class analysts to help you get through the project.
Need Extra Help?
Speak With An Analyst
Get the help you need in this 3-phase advisory process. You'll receive 8 touchpoints with our researchers, all included in your membership.
Guided Implementation 1: Establish the risk environment
- Call 1: Have a project kick-off call.
- Call 2: Establish risk management responsibilities.
- Call 3: Establish the information security risk tolerance.
Guided Implementation 2: Build the security risk register
- Call 1: Begin building the risk register through risk identification.
- Call 2: Evaluate the risk results and review aggregate risk level.
Guided Implementation 3: Manage and communicate the risk register results
- Call 1: Secure the risk register.
- Call 2: Communicate conclusions drawn from risk register.
- Call 3: Leverage risk conclusions in security decisions.
Contributors
- Robert Banniza, Senior Director – IT Center Security, AMSURG
- Robert Hawk, Information Security Expert, xMatters, inc
- Joey LaCour, CISO, Colonial Savings, F.A.
- Sky Sharma, Cyber Security Advocate
- 1 additional anonymous contributor
Develop and Implement a Security Incident Management Program
Build Resilience Against Ransomware Attacks
Build a Vendor Security Assessment Service
Implement Risk-Based Vulnerability Management
Design a Tabletop Exercise to Support Your Security Operation
Integrate Threat Intelligence Into Your Security Operations
Master Your Security Incident Response Communications Program
Design a Coordinated Vulnerability Disclosure Program