You can evaluate risk and stay in line with regulatory requirements with the help of a security risk assessment (SRA).
Security should be a primary concern for any company.
To prevent hackers from breaking into your network and stealing sensitive information, or to prevent intruders from breaking into your property and causing damage to your assets or your employees, you should conduct a security risk assessment regularly.
Infrastructure, server/system analysis, network, applications, information security, company rules, and external security providers are all part of this.
All of your company’s processes, technology, and business operations pose some level of security risk, and it’s up to you to identify and mitigate those dangers. A formal risk assessment of these security threats and adherence to specified standards for mitigating them may be required by law in some jurisdictions.
The risks your company might face during its day-to-day endeavors or the risks that the assets or employees of your organization may face on company property can be effectively assessed through different methods.
In this article, we will talk about some of the most effective methods for risk assessment in your company.
What is Risk Assessment?
Risk assessment is how companies figure out what to do in the complex security environment of the present time and determine the best course of action.
There are vulnerabilities and potential threats in everything.
Anytime an intruder might barge into your property and cause severe damage to your assets or cause harm to your employees.
Also, you could fall victim to crimes like theft, robbery, arson, or snatching at any time if you haven’t assessed the risks properly beforehand.
That’s why it’s important to hire a proper security company.
Get a security consultation to assess the risks your property or company might face, and then take security measures based on the assessment.
The organization’s decision-makers must be aware of the severity of the dangers they face and the financial implications of taking preventative measures. Priorities can be easily established with the help of risk assessment.
The repercussions and likelihood of each risk are calculated in those assessments. After considering the organization’s strategy, funding, and timetable, decision-makers can decide which mitigation efforts to prioritize.
Effective Methods for Risk Assessment
Different industries and organizations use different risk assessment methods. However, whichever technique is used, should be well suited to the organization’s work process.
Assessing risk means making a quantitative or qualitative determination about how likely something is to go wrong in response to an identified danger.
However, risks are mainly assessed quantitatively.
To conduct a quantitative risk assessment, it is necessary to determine two risk components.
- The magnitude of the potential loss.
- The probability (p) that the loss will occur.
Four basic steps are always taken while doing a risk assessment, which are-
- Recognize the threat: Whether the cause is emotional, chemical, biological, or physical
- Figure out who might be harmed
- Evaluate the risk
- Document your findings
Risk assessment methods vary depending on the sector, the type of choice being made (general financial, environmental, ecological, or public health), and other factors.
There are several methods with the potential to aid in risk detection, evaluation, and control.
Some of the common methods are-
- What-if analysis
- Failure mode event analysis (FMEA)
- Fault tree analysis (FTA)
- Incident BowTie
- Hazard operability analysis (HAZOP)
- Event Tree
- What-If Analysis
‘What-If Analysis’ helps discover potential threats, dangerous scenarios, or potentially disastrous chains of events.
Possible departures from the design, construction, modification, or operating intent might be investigated using this method.
When used by a team of analysts with sufficient experience, this method can yield impressive results.
- Fault Tree Analysis (FTA)
An incident’s potential causes can be laid out in a vertical graphic form called a ‘Fault Tree’.
This figure illustrates how various systemic failures and events interact with one another.
The state of a system (TopEvent) is represented in Fault Tree diagrams by the states of its constituent parts (basic events). Starting with the TopEvent (the entire system) and working backward in time, a Fault Tree diagram is constructed.
It exemplifies the potential chains of predictable bad fundamentals that this TopEvent can set off. The question “How could this happen?” is applied to every occurrence. Using gate symbols (AND, OR), the pathways link together relevant events and situations.
- Failure Mode Event Analysis (FMEA)
Failure mode event analysis (FMEA) is also known as failure mode, effects, and criticality analysis (FMECA). The FMEA process is a systematic method for analyzing the causes and consequences of potential design, production, or service failures.
The potential ways in which something may fail are referred to as its “failure modes.” Any faults or flaws, especially those that affect the client, are examples of failures.
Effects analysis is the study of the outcomes of such setbacks. The severity of the repercussions, the frequency with which they occur, and the ease with which they can be identified are all factors in determining the order of priority for failures.
The FMEA is used to prioritize the most critical failures and then take steps to eliminate or decrease them.
For continuous improvement, failure mode and effects analysis also record the state of our understanding of and response to, potential failures. FMEA is used in the design phase to eliminate potential problems.
It is then employed for the regulation of the process before and throughout its actual execution. FMEA should start at the very beginning of the design process and go on for as long as possible.
- Hazard Operability Analysis (HAZOP)
Hazard and Operability Analysis (HAZOP) is a methodical and organized strategy for checking out systems and handling risks.
In particular, HAZOP is used as a technique for finding safety risks in a system and usability issues that could result in defective products.
According to the theory HAZOP is based on, situations of risk arise when plans deviate from what was originally formed.
Sets of “guide words” serve as a systematic list of deviation viewpoints that aid in the detection of such outliers.
Unique to the HAZOP methodology, this strategy encourages team members to use their creativity as they brainstorm potential deviations.
- Incident BowTie
The ‘Incident BowTie’ approach combines two separate types of analysis:
- BowTie risk analysis
- Tripod incident analysis
The advantages of both systems are combined in this approach.
Input from a BowTie analysis can be used in an incident analysis to gain a broader understanding of the situation and account for every conceivable outcome.
By factoring in the findings of the Tripod incident analysis, the BowTie analysis will be more accurate and up-to-date.
It adds another layer to the BowTie diagram, allowing you to add more detailed information to the risk analysis.
Both the BowTie and the Tripod use barriers to illustrate the steps taken to prevent incidents or events and to pinpoint the source of any problems.
The ‘Incident BowTie’ diagram can be constructed by linking the items from both approaches at the level of the barriers.
These allow the data collection from two perspectives on the obstacles in question.
- Event Tree
The Event Tree analysis method is an inductive, bottom-up approach. It uses broad knowledge to examine narrow data.
The resulting diagram is a horizontal representation of the logic model that lists all the possible results of some initial trigger. The event timeline shifts depending on whether or not the relevant barriers or safety functions are effective. The chain of events has different potential outcomes.
Each set of barriers’ failures or successes results in a certain outcome or event. This method can also be applied quantitatively to determine the failure probability of each barrier by calculating the likelihood of each result or consequence.
4 Benefits of Security Risk Assessments
The advantages of conducting a security risk assessment are-
- Finding Out Weak Areas
If you want to find out where your company is vulnerable across all of its systems, a security risk assessment is the way to go. You’ll have lots of chances to think about and fix these issues if you’re given enough time and insight.
- Protecting Compliance
There are privacy and security regulations that particular industries and types of enterprises must comply with. In these situations, you must conduct a security risk assessment to guarantee continued compliance.
- Preventing Damage
For many companies, the biggest gain from a security risk assessment is the chance to prevent potential damages. If you catch a security flaw before it’s exploited, you might save your firm hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of dollars.
- Staying Updated
Your company’s technologies and procedures evolve with time, and the same happens to security standards as well. Performing regular security risk assessments can help you stay up-to-date with evolving security standards.
Also, you can prefer the physical penetration testing that involves simulating real-world attacks on a company’s physical security measures to identify vulnerabilities and weaknesses, helping organizations improve their overall security posture and protect against unauthorized access.
Final Words
None of these approaches is perfect. There are benefits and drawbacks to each.
Thankfully, none of them are exclusive of the others. Companies frequently conduct risk assessments that combine various methods, either on purpose or as a result of external factors. Your organization’s goals and structure will dictate the methods you choose for your risk assessment process.
So, make sure to hire a proper security service agency and have a security consultation with them to determine which method will help you the most in your risk assessment process, and then make sure to take proper measures along with your security agency to secure your premises strongly.