It is no doubt that organizations today have to go to extreme measures to protect themselves from a rapidly changing and an increasingly threatening range of information security risks. If an information security risk goes unnoticed, it can lead to reputational damage for the organization and severe financial regulatory. A risk assessment process that can identify risks to specific information assets will help the organization in making information security investment and control decisions in the future.
Protecting information and information systems from unauthorized access, disruption, disclosure, use or destruction is considered information security. Risk could be defined as the possibility of a threat agent that takes advantage of the defenselessness and the impact it would have on the business. Information security risk is the possibility of a threat trying to gain unauthorized access into an organizations information system. In order to protect the information assets, information security management processes have been put in place.
In an organization, not all information is equal therefore not all information requires the same degree of protection. An essential feature of information security risk management is to recognize how valuable the information is and apply appropriate procedures and protection requirements for the information. Start with assigning information a security classification by indentifying a member of senior management as the owner of particular information that is to be classified. Develop a classification policy where it describes the different classification labels and define the criteria for information to be assigned a particular label with each classification having a list of required security controls. Some common labels used by businesses today are public sensitive, private and confidential. It is vital that all employees of an organization are trained on the classification and understanding of the required security controls and handling procedures for each classification of information.
Compared to assessing other types of risks, information security risks can be more difficult because of the costs involved with information security risk factors and the data probability are most often limited as well due to the rapid changes of risk factors. Costs such as the disclosure of sensitive information or the loss of customer confidence are naturally difficult to measure. Even though the costs of hardware and software to build the controls may be estimated, it is impossible to account for the indirect costs such as the possible loss of productivity when new controls are implemented. Due to the increase in dramatic and constant changes in information security risk it is essential that organizations update their security systems frequently with better risk management controls.