Presently, there is no greater priority than the prevention of a data breach. One has to keep alert for the effectiveness of the security controls so that they don’t change in a split of a second. An ideal way to ensure this is by having a risk management plan so that you can avoid a data breach, which will ruin your IT supply up and down.
First, you must identify the risk before you can move to analyze and establish the proper risk mitigation steps. So, most times you can expect to make lots of lists to keep up with the entire process.
To put this into perspective, you will need to follow a set of steps to draw up an adequate risk management plan. You will need to conduct a risk assessment so that you can identify where you will reserve, transmit, and distribute information. Then, examine to see if there could arise any potential risks of accessibility, confidentiality, and integrity to it.
Once you have accomplished that, you will need to make a second list that will help you rate the significance of the data as well as to let you examine if there any chances of data endangerment.
Finally, using the second list, you will have to create a third one which will illustrate whether you choose to transfer, mitigate, refuse, or accept the risk. Keep in mind that you also must record your basis for supporting your decision and the steps you followed through on the decision.
How to Analyze Potential Impact of a Risk Event
Several categories of risk events occur within the information security background. But when well-informed about the probable events and statistics promoting data invasions costs, you can bet you will reflect over the risks and estimate the impact adequately.
- Vendor Data Breach
Such a breach can wreck you. According to a report issued by the Ponemon Institute in 2017, 56% of data invasions originated from third-party vendors. The report also revealed that the standard payout for data invasion was $ 7,350,000 including customer loss, fines, and remediation.
- Malicious Attacks
According to the Verizon Data Breach Insights 2018’s report, 73% of cyber-attacks emanated from nefarious organized groups, nation-state or nation-state related malicious actors. Out of 53,308 security incidents, 2,216 comprised of data breaches, of which 21, 409 of the events cropped up due to hacking attacks.
- Insider Issues
The same report by Verizon gave insights on the effects of internally evoked risk events. In it were a startling number of internal breach activities emanating from system administrators and end-users. Out of the 277 insider issues reported, 134 incidents arose from these two categories. Concurrently, social engineering accounted for 1,450 incidents, of which 381 affirmed to data disclosure.
Why You Need A Risk Assessment Matrix
The greatness of qualitative risk reviews is that they give you estimates. They let you determine responses adequately not just to identify the probability of an incident’s occurrence but also to help you understand the impact it might have. At times, the event may be unlikely to occur, though its impact could strain your financial stance. Thus, distorting your math plans.
But when you have a risk assessment matrix, you will easily track data security risks across the field, permitting you to concentrate on the essential and impactful risks first before moving on to attend to other probable events suitably.
How To Apply A Project Management Approach To A Cybersecurity Risk Management Plan
Project management and taking a security-first approach to cybersecurity tasks go hand-in-hand. With that in mind, you ought to start by laying out the risks and formulating projects that permit you to test, develop, and operate your data guards.
WBS- Work Breakdown Structure use offers an excellent example of how to design a cybersecurity risk management plan while employing a project management approach. As a project manager, it will be your duty to ensure that both internal and external stakeholders are in unity so that everyone can understand what they ought to do to meet goals. Likewise, the chief information officer (CIO) needs to mobilize the c-suite and department managers initiating various tasks integrated into cybersecurity monitoring and vendor management.
The WBS is responsible for providing internal stakeholders with information on the tasks and subtasks they need to do. Furthermore, as part of information security compliance, you need to analyze standards and regulations for their unit and subparts.
Using Project Management to Create Cyber Security Risk Mitigation Strategies
The risk mitigations will always remain the same, whether you choose to bring a new Software-as-a-Service vendor or want to become compliant with a new regulation or standard to scale the business.
| Project Management | Cyber Security |
| Defines the project. | Helps you choose which regulation or standard to coordinate with your controls. |
| Formulates records and draws up contingency plans for probable problems. | Creates procedures and policies for controls and enacts disaster recovery and business continuity plans. |
While active hardware and software development strives to ensure continuous monitoring of the product through its life cycle, cybersecurity risk management helps you to track hazards to the data environment to secure controls effectiveness.
Having risk management plans guarantees your data safety. Without it, it will be easy for a malicious actor to sight a vulnerable spot to exploit leading to a data breach. So, be vigilant and secure your business the right way.
Author Bio
Ken Lynch is an enterprise software startup veteran, who has always been fascinated about what drives workers to work and how to make work more engaging. Ken founded Reciprocity to pursue just that. He has propelled Reciprocity’s success with this mission-based goal of engaging employees with the governance, risk, and compliance goals of their company in order to create more socially minded corporate citizens. Ken earned his BS in Computer Science and Electrical Engineering from MIT. Learn more at ReciprocityLabs.com.