What is Security Risk Assessment and why is it Important?
by Rajat Sahoo Active BloggerA security
assessment is an important part of cybersecurity practices and protects your
company from attackers, cybercriminals, and intruders. A huge portion of every
organization relies heavily on the internet and this makes cybersecurity all
the more important, it is a crucial part of your online protection that must
not be ignored. Risk assessment is an important part of cybersecurity practices
and involves the detection and alleviation of security risks threatening your
organization.
Risk assessment aims
to measure the number of security barriers an organization has and check if the
company complies with the requirements and industry frameworks. Risk assessment
ensures that there is control and assess open ports, encryption policies, passwords,
and patch management, and so on. This way the professionals can easily check
the company’s controls, risk factors and come up with detailed plans and
solutions as well as offer options to detect and fix vulnerabilities.
The various types of
security risk assessment are pen testing which aims to simulate an
attack to see your potential vulnerabilities in the organization. Risk
assessments detect the risk and losses that can be caused by such attacks. Vulnerability
assessment aims to identify threats and vulnerabilities as well as offers
solutions to fix them, and lastly, compliance assessments which confirm the
compliance with certain standards organizations need to follow.
Why do you need
to perform a risk assessment?
There are a lot of
myths about risk assessments. Some people assume that they are too time-consuming
and are not needed if you already have good security. Some even think it’s a
waste of time. In fact, risk assessments are very crucial and important, and
regardless of the size of your organization, you need to have one performed to
assess your vulnerable areas and help to fix them to avoid a data breach. Here
are a couple of reasons why.
Avoid a security breach-
Regardless of how sophisticated your system is, you’re
never invulnerable to online threats. From hackers, viruses, malware, and
cybercriminals there are risks always waiting to happen especially if you have
vulnerabilities in your system. It can help to identify gaps in your defenses
and ensure that controls are put in place, threats are fixed and your network
is secure with the guidelines and recommendations.
Protect your reputation-
Without frequent assessments, the danger of a security
breach is high. If a breach were to happen your important data, your client’s
information and your customers' personal details would all be at risk and this,
in turn, will affect your business with prospective clientele. This is why
finding out about a security breach beforehand is very important as it can help
protect your company's reputation from getting ruined.
Reduce cost-
A breach can cost you a lot of money from getting your
data back, and keeping business operations back up and running. However, if
clients leave, customers don’t come back, this can eat into your budget along
with unplanned expenses. A risk assessment can allow you to pre-plan how much
you will be spending and your overall budget.
Increase self-awareness-
A security risk assessment helps to identify a
vulnerability that may be unknown to you and provide infrastructure to find a
solution to it. Without the proper tools and knowledge, you won’t be able to
protect yourself against an attack and you won’t know how to utilize certain
skills to protect your information. This could also bring future threats with
it and could cost you a lot of money to streamline it with another technology.
The Bottom Line
A risk assessment
offers you the solution to protect your information, data, clients, and
customers' personal information and empowers you to deal with risks better. You
will get the best out of your investment. Always do your research and hire an
experienced and skilled team that will help you take care of the entire process
so you can focus on making your brand work and grow successfully.
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Created on Feb 7th 2021 11:24. Viewed 296 times.