A risk assessment is a process that companies use to find and understand possible problems that could harm their business. They look at scenarios like cyberattacks or financial troubles to see how likely they are and how bad they could be. The goal is to create plans to reduce these risks and keep the company safe. By doing this regularly, companies can better handle and avoid potential threats.
Will my auditor complete this section in Vanta?
- This section is for you and your organization to complete. Learn how to perform a Risk assessment.
What is the Risk Management Page in Vanta?
- The Risk Register is an exercise for your company to identify, assess, and mitigate any outstanding risks. I want you to know that the goal is to avoid an incident occurring at your organization due to a risk you weren't aware of.
- This process includes identifying potential hazards, analyzing and prioritizing them based on their likelihood and potential impact, and then developing strategies to avoid, transfer, mitigate, or accept them.
How often do I need to perform a risk assessment?
- Risk assessments should be conducted annually to ensure ongoing identification and management of potential threats. They should also be performed whenever significant changes, such as new technologies, business processes, or organizational restructuring.
- Following any security incident, an assessment is crucial to understand vulnerabilities and prevent future breaches.
- Depending on the industry, more frequent periodic reviews, such as quarterly or semi-annually, may be necessary to keep risk management strategies up to date.
- Additionally, some industries have regulatory requirements that dictate the specific frequency of risk assessments.
Regular assessments help organizations adapt to the evolving risk landscape and maintain adequate security practices.
Important!
- Remember to Create a Snapshot and mark Share with auditor so your auditor can review it. This step is required for your auditor to review your Risk Management program.
- If you are working with an auditor, confirm with them if the assessment needs to be performed during your audit window.
How many risks should I include?
- We recommend starting with 10-12 risks. For SOC2, you must include at least one risk from the Fraud category.
There are so many risks, how do I choose which 10-12 to include?
- Think about the risks in the following way:
- How likely is this to happen (consider including the high-risk ones)?
- If it were to happen, how much of an impact would it have on my business/customer data (consider including the crucial impact ones)?
- Anything else you discovered working through Vanta - say you marked a control out of scope or you decide you're not following a certain procedure, or you found something concerning on SOC report from a Vendor you are working with, you can include that as a risk
What do the different Treatment Options mean?
- Avoidance: This means not engaging in activities that could pose security risks. For example, a company might decide not to use certain software known for security vulnerabilities, thereby avoiding potential security breaches.
- Mitigation: This involves taking actions to reduce the likelihood or impact of security risks. For instance, implementing multi-factor authentication (MFA) reduces the chance of unauthorized access to sensitive systems and data
- Transfer: This means shifting the responsibility of a security risk to another party. For example, a company might outsource its data storage to a cloud provider with robust security measures, transferring the risk of data breaches to the cloud provider.
- Acceptance: This is when a company recognizes a security risk but chooses not to take specific actions because it's deemed minor or too costly to mitigate. For instance, a small business might accept the risk of minor phishing attacks and focus its resources on more significant threats instead.
Is it okay to accept a risk?
- Yes! It just means you acknowledge the risk but have decided not to take any immediate action to mitigate it. Remember, when you accept a risk, the original and residual likelihood and impact must be the same. The main goal of the risk register is to demonstrate that you're actively managing and monitoring your organization's risks.
Do I need to assign a control to every risk?
- No, you don't have to assign a control to every risk. However, it's best practice to link risks to controls, especially if you choose to mitigate as the risk treatment plan. If you select a risk on our Risk Library, Vanta will recommend which controls should be associated with it.
Do I need to assign a task to every risk?
- No, you don't have to assign a task to every risk. If you do have the next steps that need to be taken, it is best practice to link a task so you can keep track of what needs to be done with the associated risk.
How do auditors view this exercise? What are their expectations?
- Your auditor will be able to view your Snapshot of your Risk Register, so please make sure you complete this step after going through the exercise.
- Your auditor wants to see that you perform this exercise at least annually (or when significant changes occur at your organization). If you are pursuing SOC 2, they want to see a category for Fraud.
How do I complete this exercise?
- We have lots of resources available to walk you through these steps:
Updated