4 essential steps for conducting a risk assessment
No one’s immune to a data breach—but just how vulnerable are you?
When it comes to information security, taking a hard look at your institutional risk may not be easy, but it’s a critical step toward keeping your campus safe.
What is a risk assessment and how do you conduct one?
A risk assessment is an analysis of an institution’s cybersecurity safeguards and vulnerabilities. Conducting these examinations periodically can help keep the organization on its toes and data well-secured. Here are four cybersecurity risk assessment best practices to help you get started.
How to conduct a risk assessment
Here are four cybersecurity risk assessment best practices to help you get started.
1. Get the right people in the room
While IT may lead the charge for information security, your assessment will only have the necessary weight and impact if you engage a range of stakeholders, including executives; department heads; representatives from finance, HR, and legal; external auditors; and third-party vendors and partners. Organization-wide buy-in is crucial because, in addition to technology, people and processes are significant risk factors.
2. Choose the right risk assessment methodology
There are many types of risk assessments such as penetration testing, IT audits, and internal questionnaires. Risk assessment questionnaires aim to identify assets and threats, determine the potential impact, and minimize risk. In choosing a methodology, consider starting with the HECVAT, a questionnaire framework created for higher education to measure vendor risk.
3. Prioritize threats
When creating an information security plan under time or resource constraints, prioritize threats by mapping them on a graph of likelihood vs. potential impact. This framework helps institutions determine which issues to address immediately and how to sustain a long-term security strategy.
4. Make assessments ongoing
There are many factors that impact information security and threats evolve quickly. Because of this, you must determine a schedule for recurring assessment—with internal reviews happening frequently and external auditors brought in periodically or for specific purposes.
Once you’ve decided on the right risk assessment tools to use, conducted a thorough analysis, and set institutional priorities, the next step is to create an effective information security plan—including everything from technology to incident response to education.
Learn how to create an information security plan in our ebook.
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