What is Security Risk Assessment and why is it Important?

by Rajat Sahoo Active Blogger

A 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.