You hear the term risk analysis come up often enough. But what exactly does it mean? And why should you conduct a risk analysis?
What is a risk analysis?
Every business faces risks to a greater or lesser extent. By being aware of risks as an organisation, you can take advantage of opportunities presented by the risks in question or mitigate the threats resulting from the risks.
With a risk analysis, you identify all possible threats and consequences. A risk is not an immediate threat, but may become one in the future. Therefore, to anticipate these risks, control measures are then added.
Methodologies
ISO standards state that risk assessment should be carried out, but say nothing about the method you can use for this as an organisation. There are therefore different methods for carrying out a risk assessment, some examples of methodologies are;
- FMEA – Basically, this method assumes an approach in which risks are linked to resources needed to perform critical business processes. With specific focus on risks that threaten service continuity and/or lead to the loss of (confidential) information/data.
- NIST – The risk analysis from NIST assumes risks arising from threats and vulnerabilities. This method is therefore common for information security purposes. Specific attention is paid to the values of the information and the consequence of its possible loss or reliability.
- COSO – Risk analysis from COSO assumes an approach to the impact of all possible consequences of risks and the probability of their occurrence. This probability can be determined based on the frequency that a risk may occur,
Which method you choose depends on what best suits your organisation.
The pros and cons of risk analysis
Conducting a risk analysis has both advantages and disadvantages. A major advantage, of course, is gaining insight into threats, vulnerabilities and their impact on the organisation. In addition, consideration is given to the possible control measures to be taken and improved. Furthermore, a conscious trade-off is made (costs versus benefits).
On the other hand, conducting a thorough risk analysis takes time. Thus, there are a minimum number of steps that are gone through during a thorough risk analysis:
- Identifying risks
- Assessing risks
- Assessing risks
- Preparing risk treatment plans
In addition, conducting a risk analysis often requires expertise. In our view, however, this outweighs the benefits. After all, your business continuity is the most important thing.
For which organisation is a risk analysis applicable?
Performing a risk analysis is often an integral part of the process of obtaining an ISO 27001 certificate. But a risk analysis is also interesting if you, as an organisation, want to understand possible risks and respond proactively. It does not matter whether you are a one-man business or a multinational.
How can Protify help your organisation?
Conducting a risk analysis can be time-consuming. Protify can take much of the work off your hands. Protify uses the FMEA method, which uses a systematic approach to identify all risks. We do this by understanding which resources are important for your organisation to deliver your services or develop products. Here, we look at any vulnerabilities in processes and then identify the risks.
All identified risks are assigned a risk score (RPN). The RPN provides insight into the risks your organisation faces on a priority basis. We then link control measures to the risks and make it immediately clear to your organisation which control measures need to be implemented so you can get started.
ProActive Compliance Tool
Protify uses the ProActive Compliance Tool (PCT). This online tool makes it easy to identify risks and link control measures to them. Within the PCT, all possible risks are systematically divided into categories, and pre-defined as much as possible so that nothing is overlooked. Dashboards allow you to see the real-time status of risks and control measures at a glance. Visit the PCT’s website to see what the possibilities are.
More information on risk analysis?
Want to know if a risk analysis could be of interest to your company? And how Protify can support? Contact us, we would be happy to tell you more.
