IT Risk Management: A Guide to Mitigating Cyber Threats

Identify Risk

This is the most basic part of the IT risk management process, but it’s also one of the most important. The faster you can identify risk, the sooner you can mitigate it. This involves looking at the larger, industry-wide risk landscape to determine which risks could directly impact your organization. It also involves examining internal processes and procedures to identify potential weaknesses.
Forecast Risk Probability
Once you’ve identified risks, you’ll need to prioritize them based on how likely they are to occur. To forecast each risk’s probability, you’ll have to analyze both how likely the risk is and the impact it might have on your organization.

Consider:

Probability of occurrence

Financial, operational and reputational impacts

Regulatory consequences, like fines

This can help you prioritize which risks to address immediately, and which might be less urgent.
Use Your Previous Analysis to Prioritize Risks

When you remediate risks matters, some can wait, but others can become more costly with time. Use your analysis of each risk to rank its priority. Ensure you weigh both its likelihood and business impact; you may still prioritize a specific risk based on its significant business impact.

Don’t stop with a ranked list, either. Timelines are an essential part of an IT risk management strategy, so ensure you align your priorities with your team’s capacity and have an estimated timeline for mitigating all risks.
Take Action

Cyberattacks happen, no matter how effectively you’ve identified and mitigated risks. In the (even unlikely event) of a breach, the next step is to take action. This requires a documented and centralized IT risk management process that can adapt to different departments and their unique procedures.

Your documented process becomes the plan of action that will unfold once an attack happens. This should detail the procedures, people, time and resources required to stop the breach in its tracks.
Conduct 'Always On' Monitoring

Organizations are never really beyond risk. They just have yet to encounter their next risk. That’s why the final step in IT risk management is to monitor the program, which requires revisiting all previous actions on an ongoing basis. Organizations should adopt an “always-on” approach to risk that allows them to identify, prioritize and act on new and emerging risks.

But monitoring isn’t just about the risks. It’s also about reviewing how risk management processes perform in real-time, and making adjustments so the organization remains secure.

Technology Can Enhance Your IT Risk Management Process

Managing risk isn’t easy, and it requires an always-on approach that can be hard to achieve manually. With an IT risk management solution, organizations can build the strategic alignment and visibility they need to prevent and mitigate risk across the organization swiftly. This saves time, cuts costs and implements a comprehensive line of defense against cybersecurity risk.