ITEC 85 Lesson 4: Risk Management

Risk Management

• The process of identifying, assessing, and controlling threats to an organization's capital and earnings
• Risks stem from various sources, including financial uncertainties, legal liabilities, technology issues, strategic management errors, accidents, and natural disasters

Security Management

• A process used to achieve and maintain appropriate levels of confidentiality, integrity, availability, accountability, authenticity, and reliability
• IT security management functions include:
  • Organizational IT security objectives, strategies, and policies
  • Determining organizational IT security requirements
  • Identifying and analyzing security threats to IT assets
  • Identifying and analyzing risks
  • Specifying appropriate safeguards
  • Monitoring the implementation and operation of safeguards
  • Developing and implementing a security awareness program
  • Detecting and reacting to incidents

ISO 27000 Security Standards

• IT Security Management Process:
  • Plan (establish policy, define objectives and processes)
  • Do (implement and operate policy, controls, and processes)
  • Check (assess and measure, and report results)
  • Act (take corrective and preventative actions)

Organizational Context and Security Policy

• Examine organization's IT security:
  • Objectives (wanted IT security outcomes)
  • Strategies (how to meet objectives)
  • Policies (what needs to be done)
• Security policy should be maintained and updated regularly using periodic security reviews
• Reflect changing technical/risk environments

Security Policy: Topics to Cover

• Needs to address:
  • Scope and purpose, including relation to business, legal, and regulatory requirements
  • IT security requirements
  • Assignment of responsibilities
  • Risk management approach
  • Security awareness and training
  • General personnel issues and legal sanctions
  • Integration of security into systems development
  • Information classification scheme
  • Contingency and business continuity planning
  • Incident detection and handling processes
  • How and when policy reviewed, and change control to it

Management Support

• IT security policy must be supported by senior management
• Need an IT security officer to provide consistent overall supervision, manage the process, and handle incidents
• Large organizations may need IT security officers on major projects/teams to manage the process within their areas

Security Risk Assessment

• Critical component of the process
• Else, may have vulnerabilities or waste money
• Ideally, examine every asset vs. risk, but not feasible in practice
• Choose one of the possible alternatives based on organization's resources and risk profile:
  • Baseline approach
  • Informal approach
  • Formal approach
  • Combined approach

Baseline Approach

• Use "industry best practice"
• Easy, cheap, and can be replicated
• Gives no special consideration to organization
• May give too much or too little security
• Implement safeguards against most common threats
• Baseline recommendations and checklist documents available from various bodies
• Alone, only suitable for small organizations

Informal Approach

• Conduct informal, pragmatic risk analysis on organization's IT systems
• Exploits knowledge and expertise of analyst
• Fairly quick and cheap
• Does address some organization-specific issues
• Some risks may be incorrectly assessed
• Skewed by analyst's views, varies over time
• Suitable for small to medium-sized organizations

Detailed Risk Analysis

• Most comprehensive alternative
• Assess using formal structured process
• Identify likelihood of risk and consequences
• Hence, have confidence in controls being appropriate
• Costly and slow, requires expert analysts
• May be a legal requirement to use
• Suitable for large organizations with IT systems critical to their business objectives

Combined Approach

• Combines elements of other approaches
• Initial baseline on all systems
• Informal analysis to identify critical risks
• Formal assessment on these systems
• Iterated and extended over time
• Better use of time and money resources
• Better security earlier that evolves
• May miss some risks early
• Recommended alternative for most organizations

Detailed Risk Analysis Process

Establish Context

• Determine broad risk exposure of organization
• Related to wider political/social environment
• Legal and regulatory constraints
• Specify organization's risk appetite
• Set boundaries of risk assessment
• Decide on risk assessment criteria used

Asset Identification

• Identify assets
• Anything that needs to be protected
• Of value to organization to meet its objectives
• Tangible or intangible
• In practice, try to identify significant assets
• Draw on expertise of people in relevant areas of organization
• Identify and interview such personnel
• See checklists in various standards

Threat Identification

• Identify threats or risks to assets
• Ask who or what could cause harm?
• How could this occur?
• Threats are anything that hinders or prevents an asset providing appropriate levels of key security services:
  • Confidentiality, integrity, availability, accountability, authenticity, and reliability
• Assets may have multiple threats

Threat Sources

• Threats may be natural ("acts of God") or man-made (accidental or deliberate)
• Should consider human attackers
• Motivation, capability, resources, probability of attack, and deterrence
• Any previous history of attack on organization

Vulnerability Identification

• Identify exploitable flaws or weaknesses in organization's IT systems or processes
• Determine applicability and significance of threat to organization
• Need combination of threat and vulnerability to create a risk to an asset
• Can use lists of potential vulnerabilities in standards

Analyze Risks

• Specify likelihood of occurrence of each identified threat to asset given existing controls
• Specify consequence should threat occur
• Hence, derive overall risk rating for each threat
• Risk = probability threat occurs x cost to organization
• In practice, very hard to determine exactly
• Use qualitative not quantitative ratings for each
• Aim to order resulting risks in order to treat them

Determine Likelihood, Consequence, and Resultant Risk

Document in Risk Register and Evaluate Risks

Risk Treatment

• Risk acceptance: accept risk (perhaps because of excessive cost of risk treatment)
• Risk avoidance: do not proceed with the activity that causes the risk (loss of convenience)
• Risk transfer: buy insurance; outsource
• Reduce consequence: modify the uses of an asset to reduce risk impact
• Reduce likelihood: implement suitable controls

Assets

• Integrity of stored file and database information
• Availability, integrity of financial system
• Availability, integrity of procurement system
• Availability, integrity of maintenance/production system
• Availability, integrity, and confidentiality of mail services

Threats & Vulnerabilities

• Unauthorized modification of control system
• Corruption, theft, loss of information
• Attacks/errors affecting procurement system
• Attacks/errors affecting financial system
• Attacks/errors affecting mail system
• Attacks/errors affecting maintenance/production system

Risk Register

• A document that records and tracks risks throughout the risk management process

Risk Management

• The process of identifying, assessing, and controlling threats to an organization's capital and earnings
• Risks stem from various sources, including financial uncertainties, legal liabilities, technology issues, strategic management errors, accidents, and natural disasters

Security Management

• A process used to achieve and maintain appropriate levels of confidentiality, integrity, availability, accountability, authenticity, and reliability
• IT security management functions include:
  • Organizational IT security objectives, strategies, and policies
  • Determining organizational IT security requirements
  • Identifying and analyzing security threats to IT assets
  • Identifying and analyzing risks
  • Specifying appropriate safeguards
  • Monitoring the implementation and operation of safeguards
  • Developing and implementing a security awareness program
  • Detecting and reacting to incidents

ISO 27000 Security Standards

• IT Security Management Process:
  • Plan (establish policy, define objectives and processes)
  • Do (implement and operate policy, controls, and processes)
  • Check (assess and measure, and report results)
  • Act (take corrective and preventative actions)

Organizational Context and Security Policy

• Examine organization's IT security:
  • Objectives (wanted IT security outcomes)
  • Strategies (how to meet objectives)
  • Policies (what needs to be done)
• Security policy should be maintained and updated regularly using periodic security reviews
• Reflect changing technical/risk environments

Security Policy: Topics to Cover

• Needs to address:
  • Scope and purpose, including relation to business, legal, and regulatory requirements
  • IT security requirements
  • Assignment of responsibilities
  • Risk management approach
  • Security awareness and training
  • General personnel issues and legal sanctions
  • Integration of security into systems development
  • Information classification scheme
  • Contingency and business continuity planning
  • Incident detection and handling processes
  • How and when policy reviewed, and change control to it

Management Support

• IT security policy must be supported by senior management
• Need an IT security officer to provide consistent overall supervision, manage the process, and handle incidents
• Large organizations may need IT security officers on major projects/teams to manage the process within their areas

Security Risk Assessment

• Critical component of the process
• Else, may have vulnerabilities or waste money
• Ideally, examine every asset vs. risk, but not feasible in practice
• Choose one of the possible alternatives based on organization's resources and risk profile:
  • Baseline approach
  • Informal approach
  • Formal approach
  • Combined approach

Baseline Approach

• Use "industry best practice"
• Easy, cheap, and can be replicated
• Gives no special consideration to organization
• May give too much or too little security
• Implement safeguards against most common threats
• Baseline recommendations and checklist documents available from various bodies
• Alone, only suitable for small organizations

Informal Approach

• Conduct informal, pragmatic risk analysis on organization's IT systems
• Exploits knowledge and expertise of analyst
• Fairly quick and cheap
• Does address some organization-specific issues
• Some risks may be incorrectly assessed
• Skewed by analyst's views, varies over time
• Suitable for small to medium-sized organizations

Detailed Risk Analysis

• Most comprehensive alternative
• Assess using formal structured process
• Identify likelihood of risk and consequences
• Hence, have confidence in controls being appropriate
• Costly and slow, requires expert analysts
• May be a legal requirement to use
• Suitable for large organizations with IT systems critical to their business objectives

Combined Approach

• Combines elements of other approaches
• Initial baseline on all systems
• Informal analysis to identify critical risks
• Formal assessment on these systems
• Iterated and extended over time
• Better use of time and money resources
• Better security earlier that evolves
• May miss some risks early
• Recommended alternative for most organizations

Detailed Risk Analysis Process

Establish Context

• Determine broad risk exposure of organization
• Related to wider political/social environment
• Legal and regulatory constraints
• Specify organization's risk appetite
• Set boundaries of risk assessment
• Decide on risk assessment criteria used

Asset Identification

• Identify assets
• Anything that needs to be protected
• Of value to organization to meet its objectives
• Tangible or intangible
• In practice, try to identify significant assets
• Draw on expertise of people in relevant areas of organization
• Identify and interview such personnel
• See checklists in various standards

Threat Identification

• Identify threats or risks to assets
• Ask who or what could cause harm?
• How could this occur?
• Threats are anything that hinders or prevents an asset providing appropriate levels of key security services:
  • Confidentiality, integrity, availability, accountability, authenticity, and reliability
• Assets may have multiple threats

Threat Sources

• Threats may be natural ("acts of God") or man-made (accidental or deliberate)
• Should consider human attackers
• Motivation, capability, resources, probability of attack, and deterrence
• Any previous history of attack on organization

Vulnerability Identification

• Identify exploitable flaws or weaknesses in organization's IT systems or processes
• Determine applicability and significance of threat to organization
• Need combination of threat and vulnerability to create a risk to an asset
• Can use lists of potential vulnerabilities in standards

Analyze Risks

• Specify likelihood of occurrence of each identified threat to asset given existing controls
• Specify consequence should threat occur
• Hence, derive overall risk rating for each threat
• Risk = probability threat occurs x cost to organization
• In practice, very hard to determine exactly
• Use qualitative not quantitative ratings for each
• Aim to order resulting risks in order to treat them

Determine Likelihood, Consequence, and Resultant Risk

Document in Risk Register and Evaluate Risks

Risk Treatment

• Risk acceptance: accept risk (perhaps because of excessive cost of risk treatment)
• Risk avoidance: do not proceed with the activity that causes the risk (loss of convenience)
• Risk transfer: buy insurance; outsource
• Reduce consequence: modify the uses of an asset to reduce risk impact
• Reduce likelihood: implement suitable controls

Assets

• Integrity of stored file and database information
• Availability, integrity of financial system
• Availability, integrity of procurement system
• Availability, integrity of maintenance/production system
• Availability, integrity, and confidentiality of mail services

Threats & Vulnerabilities

• Unauthorized modification of control system
• Corruption, theft, loss of information
• Attacks/errors affecting procurement system
• Attacks/errors affecting financial system
• Attacks/errors affecting mail system
• Attacks/errors affecting maintenance/production system

Risk Register

• A document that records and tracks risks throughout the risk management process

Learn about risk management, the process of identifying, assessing and controlling threats to an organization's capital and earnings.