05 Aug Top 5 Benefits of an IT Risk Assessment

Posted at 00:00h in Insights, News by

The knowledge gained through an Information Security Risk Assessment can help guide businesses in Puerto Rico in making rational decisions to improve security posture and align risk with acceptable tolerance levels. By understanding information security risk and the impact it may have on an organization, Galíndez LLC’s security consultants set the foundation for a formalized IT risk management program. Risk management is a rich and ongoing process of identifying, assessing, and responding to risk within your organization, which constantly evolves. As the first step in the security cycle of risk management, a risk assessment provides insight into the effectiveness of a security program and acts as a baseline for subsequent policy and control decisions. Information Security Risk Assessments assist organizations in making educated security decisions, and understanding one’s risk will help prevent arbitrary action. The entire process is designed to help IT departments find and evaluate risk while aligning with business objectives. Here are the 5 key benefits:

Understanding Your Risk Profile

Identifying threats and ranking risks in a systematic way based on the potential for harm is crucial to prioritizing risk management tasks and allocating resources appropriately. A risk profile describes potential risks in detail, such as:

  • The source of the threat (internal or external)
  • The reason for the risk (uncontrolled access permissions, trade secrets, etc.)
  • The likelihood that the threat will materialize
  • Impact analyses for each threat

Using this data, you can immediately attend to the high-impact, high-probability risks, and then work your way down to the threats that are less likely and would cause less damage.

Identifying and Remediating Vulnerabilities

A gap-focused assessment methodology can help you identify and close vulnerabilities. In these risk assessments, cybersecurity, operations, and management teams collaborate to evaluate security from the perspective of a potential attacker. The process may also involve an ethical hacker, who will ensure your security controls and protocols are thoroughly tested. By comparing your objectives and risk profile to how your IT infrastructure performs during these assessments, you can determine the best steps for improving your information security.

Inventorying IT and Data Assets

Unless you know what information assets you have and how important those assets are to your organization, it’s almost impossible to make strategic decisions for IT security. With a complete, up-to-date inventory from your IT risk assessment, you can determine how to protect your most critical software and data assets.

Mitigating Costs

Regular IT risk assessment can help your company eliminate unnecessary security spending. Estimating risk accurately enables you to balance costs against benefits: you can identify the most unacceptable risks and channel resources toward them, rather than toward less likely or less damaging risks.

Complying with Legal Requirements

Most organizations have to comply with the privacy and data security requirements of various regulations. For example, the banking industry is regulated by strict federal standards, while healthcare organizations must comply with HIPAA, which requires documenting their administrative and technical safeguards for patient data and conducting regular risk assessments to ensure that those safeguards are effective. It’s important to partner with a firm that has deep knowledge of these changing regulations, to stay compliant and avoid costly mistakes that could lead to fines and penalties. Regular risk assessment is also important for companies that need to comply with consumer privacy standards like PCI DSS or financial disclosure regulations like SOX. Non-compliance with regulations like these can be extremely costly for an organization.

Need help navigating these procedures? Trust your team of IT experts at Galíndez LLC to ensure the highest level of service and stay informed, efficient, and compliant. CONTACT US TO LEARN MORE.