How To Conduct a Risk Assessment

One thing that is always stressful while running a business is the unknown. You never know if the economic environment will take a downturn, if there will be a supply chain disruption, or if there will be an accident within your business. However, the best way to overcome the unknown is to prepare for it.    

There doesn’t have to be an unknown when it comes to cyber-attacks. This is where risk assessments step in. Risk assessments help prepare for a cyber-attack by identifying any weak areas in your cybersecurity and can help you strengthen your procedures.    

How to conduct a simple risk assessment for your business:   

Step 1: Document your Information Assets: During step one, you will want to document any information that could be at risk of being compromised, how losing this information will impact you, and who has access to it.   

Step 2: Identify the Vulnerabilities: During step two, you will identify any possible risks that could affect your business. This doesn’t only apply to cyber threats, though. You should consider any possible risk that could affect your data.   

Step 3: Analyze the Risk: With step three, you will analyze and rank the vulnerabilities within your system by the probability that they will happen and the impact they will have on your organization. You will rank these risks by high, medium, and low. A higher risk requires more attention and focus, while a lower risk requires less attention.   

Step 4: Set Security Controls: Now that you know the risks and their impact on your organization, you can set proper security controls in place. This way, you are effectively preventing a cyber-attack from happening.   

Step 5: Monitor and Review Effectiveness: After the security controls are set in place, it is important to continue monitoring to ensure your security measures are working.   

A risk assessment could be very difficult to do on your own when you have a lot on your plate. At Vertek, we offer an in-depth Risk Assessment service for businesses. Vertek’s risk assessments will provide a methodology for reviewing and identifying cybersecurity risks. This process involves Vertek reviewing your business framework and seeing if it meets all the compliance regulations. Vertek will also meet with the employees in charge of compliance and ensure they follow the proper procedures and have adequate documentation. Vertek will then work with you to create a roadmap to success for your business’s cybersecurity.   

Benefits of Vertek’s Risk Assessments are:   

• Reduced insurance premiums   
• Reduced penalties due to a breach   
• Reduced business risks   
• Provides shareholders and public confidence in your business   
• You can align and prioritize budgets to your risks
• Measure and analyze the business risk appetite   

As technology advances, so do cybercriminal techniques. So it’s never a matter of if but when you will become a victim of a cybercrime. So stay one step ahead of a cyberattack and have a risk assessment done for your business.    

If you want to learn more about risk assessments, contact Vertek today! 

Sources:  

https://reciprocity.com/blog/5-steps-to-performing-a-cybersecurity-risk-assessment/ 

https://www.upguard.com/blog/how-to-perform-a-cybersecurity-risk-assessment