The primary outcome of a security control assessment procedure is a security assessment report. It is a report that documents the case of assurance for the information system. A security assessment report is one of the three crucial documents (the other two are system security plan and action) security.
What is Security Risk Assessment
A security risk assessment assesses, identifies, and implements crucial security controls in a system. The evaluation also focuses on preventing security vulnerabilities and defects. By carrying out a risk assessment, you will view the application portfolio holistically — from an attacker’s point of view. Assessments play an important role by supporting managers in making informed decisions. They will be able to allocate resources wisely and make better security implementation decisions. Therefore, conducting an assessment is an essential part of a company’s risk management system.
How Does a Security Risk Assessment Work?
Crucial factors such as resources, growth rate, and asset system can affect risk assessment modules’ depth. As a company, you can carry out generalized assessments when experiencing financial or time constraints. It is important to note that generalized assessments don’t usually give comprehensive mappings between associated threats, assets, impact, identified risks, and mitigating controls.
Discussed below are the four steps to a successful security risk assessment.
- Identification: You need to determine all the crucial assets of technology systems. Besides, you should diagnose sensitive data that are manufactured, stored, or transported by these systems. It is essential to create a risk file for each.
- Assessment: Come up with an approach to assess the possible security risks for vital assets. After a detailed assessment and evaluation, determine how efficiently the system is working, and estimate how much you need to do to secure it. The assessment methodology must analyze the coexistence between vulnerabilities, threats, assets, and mitigating controls.
- Mitigation: You should define a mitigation approach and implement security controls for each risk.
- Prevention: This is where you implement processes that reduce threats and prevent potential attacks from occurring.
What Problems does a Security Risk Assessment Solve
Listed below are some of the problems that a security risk assessment can solve.
- It creates an app portfolio for all available applications and utilities.
- It documents security requirements, procedures, and policies.
- Establishes a collection of security architecture, network systems, or stored data.
- Develops an asset inventory of physical commodities.
- Maintains information on operating systems.
A comprehensive security assessment allows an organization to:
- Identify assets within an organization.
- Create risk profiles for every asset.
- Understand what data is being transmitted, stored, or generated by the systems.
- Critically assess the assets on matters to do with business operations.
- Assess the risk ranking for assets and prioritize them accordingly.
- Implement mitigation controls for every available asset.
What Industries Require a Security Risk Assessment for Compliance?
A good number of organizations need personal health information when it comes to business operations. This information can come from customers, clients, and partners. Crucial information such as taxi identification, social security number, driver’s license, date of birth, passport details, and medical history is considered private and confidential.
Therefore, companies that create store or convey confidential data should always undergo risk management. You should know that risk assessment is required by several standards, regulations, and laws. Some of the bodies that demand security risk assessment include PCI- DSS and HIPAA.
Essential Elements of a Security Assessment Report
- Security categorization
- Information system name
- Assessment date and site assessed
- Assessor’s identification details
- Previous assessments results
- Control enhancement designator
- Selected assessment methods
- Assessment results summary
- Assessor comments
- Assessor recommendations
How to Create a Security Assessment Report
- Analyze data collected during the assessment: This will help you identify relevant issues and fix them.
- Prioritize risks and observations: You need to come up with remedies that will fix the problem.
- Document the assessment methodology: By doing so, you can refer to it when faced with similar challenges.
- Describe the prioritized recommendations and findings. Give an in-depth analysis of the assessment’s outcome.
- Attach relevant details: The report must be attached with relevant supporting documents.
- Create an executive summary: This gives a brief overview of the results of the assessment.
- Proofread and edit the document: This is important because it eliminates any potential errors.
- Consider submitting a draft first: This weeds out any false positives and fake information.
- Submit the final report to the authorized recipient: Ensure that you have submitted the report to the right person.
- Discuss the report’s details with the recipient: Ensure that they understand your assessment report and the urgency it posses.
