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Glossary:

Cybersecurity risk assessment is a process that helps organizations understand, control and mitigate all forms of cyber risk to their operations, assets and individuals12. It is a critical component of risk management strategy and data protection efforts2. It involves identifying and estimating the cybersecurity risk for enterprise risk management, prioritizing the risk based on the impact and likelihood, evaluating and selecting appropriate risk response, and communicating the risk activities to stakeholders.

Cyber threat assessment is the process of evaluating the degree and nature of threat to an information system or enterprise1. It is part of a broader cyber security risk assessment that also includes identifying and selecting countermeasures to mitigate the vulnerabilities. Cyber threat assessment can help organizations test the effectiveness of their cyber defenses and understand the cyber risks to their operations, assets and individuals.

Methodologies:

There are different methodologies and steps we use to perform a cyber threat assessment, but generally they involve the following:

•  Determine the scope of the assessment and the value of your data.
•  Identify and prioritize your assets, such as hardware, software, interfaces, etc.
•  Identify threats that can compromise your assets, such as hackers, malware, natural disasters, etc.
•  Identify vulnerabilities that can expose your assets to threats, such as outdated software, weak passwords, misconfiguration, etc.
• Analyze controls that you have in place to prevent or mitigate threats and vulnerabilities, such as firewalls, encryption, backups, policies, etc.
• Calculate the likelihood and impact of various scenarios on a per-year basis and assign a rating to each risk.
• Prioritize risks based on the cost of prevention vs. the cost of recovery.

Document results from risk assessment reports and communicate them to stakeholders.

Tools:

There are various tools that can help you perform a cybersecurity risk assessment, depending on your needs and objectives. Some of the common tools we use are:

• Data mining: These are online forms that we use to evaluate your third-party risk, such as vendors, suppliers, contractors, etc. It can help you save time and resources, and validate responses more easily.
• Security ratings: These are scores that measure the security posture of your organization or your third parties, based on external data sources, such as breach history, malware infections, patching frequency, etc. They can help you benchmark your performance and identify areas for improvement.
• Vulnerability assessment platforms: These are software tools that scan your network and systems for known vulnerabilities, such as outdated software, misconfigurations, weak passwords, etc. They can help you prioritize and remediate the most critical issues.
•  NIST Framework: This is a set of standards and best practices that provide guidance on how to manage cybersecurity risk. It consists of five core functions: Identify, Protect, Detect, Respond and Recover. It can help you align your risk management strategy with industry standards.
•  Penetration testing: This is a simulated cyberattack that tests your defenses and exposes any weaknesses or gaps in your security. It can help you validate your controls and assess your readiness to respond to real incidents.
•  Employee assessments: These are tests or surveys that measure the awareness and skills of your staff on cybersecurity topics, such as phishing, password management, social engineering, etc. They can help you train and educate your employees on how to prevent or mitigate cyber risks.
• Cyber resilience strategy: We can help you develop a plan that will help your company, respond to, and recover from cyber events. We aims to minimize the impact of cyberattacks on the organization’s operations, assets, reputation, and customers. A cyber resilience strategy is based on a risk assessment that identifies the most likely and impactful cyber threats that the organization faces. It should also involve collaboration across the organization, as well as with external partners, suppliers, and customers. It includes various steps:
• Prevention: This involves implementing security controls and best practices to reduce the likelihood and severity of cyberattacks. Examples of prevention measures are encryption, authentication, firewall, antivirus, backup, etc.
•  Detection: This involves monitoring and analyzing the network and systems for any signs of malicious activity or anomalies. Examples of detection tools are intrusion detection systems, security information and event management systems, threat intelligence platforms, etc.
• Response: This involves taking timely and appropriate actions to contain, mitigate, and eliminate cyber incidents. Examples of response activities are incident response plans, crisis communication plans, forensic analysis, etc.
• Recovery: This involves restoring normal operations and functionality after a cyber incident. Examples of recovery actions are disaster recovery plans, business continuity plans, data restoration, lessons learned, etc.
  Cyber incident management is the process of identifying, managing, recording and analyzing security threats or incidents related to cybersecurity in the real world. It consists of preparation, detection, containment, mitigation and recovery phases. It aims to restore the service to its operational state and improve the process for future incidents.