This blog was written by a third party author. A security risk assessment is a formal method for evaluating an organization's cybersecurity risk posture. Comprehensive security risk assessments take stock in business objectives, existing security controls, and the risk environment in which the business operates. When done well, the assessment identifies security gaps in existing controls as compared with industry best practices.
There is a story from years ago about a warehouse network of computers that was separated from the main network. Those machines were running older OSes. But since they weren’t connected to the company network, didn’t hold company data, and only ran the warehouse machines, they were deemed secure. One day, the sysadmin noticed that all of those computers had a glitch at the same time. He remotely rebooted and went back to his desk. But they all glitched again. What happened?
Information security should be at the heart of every system launched. In accordance with the Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA), an information technology system is granted an Authority to Operate (ATO) after passing a risk-based cybersecurity assessment.
Cybersecurity risk management is the practice of prioritizing cybersecurity defensive measures based on the potential adverse impact of the threats they're designed to address. Establishing a risk management approach to cybersecurity investment acknowledges that no organization can completely eliminate every system vulnerability or block every cyber-attack.
