5 Risk Assessment Parameters of ISO 27001 Standard for Information Security Management

5 Risk Assessment Parameters of ISO 27001 Standard for Information Security Management

ISO/IEC 27001 standard is an international standard for Information Security Management that specifics the requirements for the implementation of a risk management system and process for reviewing and confirming security controls in an organization. The ISO 27001 standard helps organizations to confirm their processes are in line with monitoring, legal, and prescribed responsibilities and are working towards completing the goal of security. Risk Assessment is an integral part of the ISO/IEC 27001 Standard as it helps organizations determine, analyse, and evaluate vulnerabilities in their Information Security Procedures.

Risk Assessment connecting to information security is imperative for organizations to understand various fears and risks to their serious data could be exposed. It is an important step to deliberate when developing an information security management system as it forms a strong foundation for the organization’s security program. The procedure of Risk Assessment can benefit to identify threats and additionally help to reasonable the various risk of incidents that can disturb the operations of an organization. The process of conducting regular risk assessments helps direct an organization’s focus toward the most critical and extremely risky parts of the organization’s structure and determine where weaknesses lie.

Here are total 5 steps of risk assessments, which are as follows: 

Identifying Risks

Identifying risk is the most serious part of Risk Assessment. Identifying risk typically includes defining serious assets that need protection. A possible threat that may impact business operations, processes, asset management, and security controls that may result in an incident that impacts the organization. Also identifying risk is based on two types. A risk-based approach and an asset-based approach. 

Analysing Risks

Risk analysis contains considering and defining the way an occurrence may arise and how it will disturb the organization. This includes categorizing possible ways in which identified weaknesses are found from asset-based or risk-based procedures. The analysis must also consist of a valuation of the possibility of the incident occurring and the level of impact that it would have on the organization.

Evaluating Risks

After the identified and analysed risks, now it’s time to evaluate the risk and rated based on their brutality. The evaluation should contain ranking the risk level on a scale of low to high for the organization. Risk scaling is subjective by nature and it is based on a set of criteria for reliability across your management system. Every organization must evaluate its impact and the effect of risk on the internal and external business.

Risk Management & Treatment Options

As soon as completing the identified, analysis, and evaluation of the risks, the organization should decide to mitigate the risk. For that, an ISO 27001 awareness training will help to understand risk management. Commonly, the response to addressing the identified risks is categorized into three parts. Which includes:

·        Modification which involves executing security controls.

·        Retention of risks which is tolerant the risk falls within the acceptable levels.

·        Avoiding the risk by changing the circumstances causing the risk.

Also, an organization needs to identify the existing controls that are in place and controls that should be recognized to mitigate and/or reduce risk. 

Reviewing and Monitoring

After completing all the major steps it’s time to consistently review, update and improve the information security management system to certify that the controls are very effective, correctly established, and working as planned. The Risk Assessment process must be continuous to ensure the organization has accounted for all the variations and the constantly evolving threat landscape. This procedure of identifying, analysing, evaluating, and monitoring should be seen as a chance to constantly expand the ISMS and implement control that can address the growing risks.