An overview of the IT risk management process

With today’s business landscape comprised of complex technology ecosystems and interdependent services, networks, and applications, organizations are now more susceptible to cyberattacks that can lead to significant damages and costs. Establishing robust IT risk management processes can help you safeguard valuable data and maintain critical operations amidst disruptions. In this blog, we will provide you with a fundamental guide on what IT risk management is all about and how you can develop an effective IT risk management program to achieve resilience against various cyber threats. Read on to learn more:

What is IT risk management?

IT risk management refers to the process of identifying, analyzing, addressing, and monitoring risks related to an organization’s technology infrastructure and systems which could significantly impact its data, assets, and operations. It involves identifying potential IT risks such as malware attacks and data breaches, evaluating their impact on the organization, implementing risk mitigation measures, and monitoring the organization’s overall risk and security posture.

The goal of IT risk management is to prevent or minimize incidents and disruptions, enabling organizations to achieve their business objectives while ensuring the security of their data and assets. IT risk management processes typically involve IT professionals taking on the role of risk managers to ensure that risk management and mitigation strategies are tailored to the organization’s threat landscape.

5 steps in the IT risk management process

Organizations can incorporate the process of IT risk management into their security and overall business strategy by following these steps:

1. Scoping

Set the scope of your IT risk management program by adopting an IT risk management framework and establishing internal policies that the entire organization must abide by. This could include data protection and privacy policies, vendor risk management policies, incident response and disaster recovery plans, and other policies which will guide all risk management procedures. You must also define the roles and responsibilities of upper management, IT and security teams, and vendors in each stage of the risk management lifecycle.

2. Risk identification

Once you have specified the framework and policies that will govern your IT risk management program, the next step is to identify all information security and operational risks that are relevant to your organization as well as any system vulnerabilities that can be exploited by threat actors. Start by identifying assets such as data, hardware, and software and the equivalent risks to their security. Though IT risk management mainly focuses on technological aspects, risks related to people and processes should also be considered.

An essential tool that organizations can utilize during the risk identification stage is a risk register, where you can store, organize, monitor, and assign ownership of risks in one place. 6clicks’ IT risk management capability can equip you with ready-to-use risk libraries to streamline your risk identification as well as a powerful risk register featuring custom risk fields for centralizing risk assessment and risk treatment activities.

3. Risk assessment

Next, with identified risks, your IT risk management program should outline procedures for risk assessment. The risk assessment process entails analyzing and measuring the likelihood and impact of a risk. The combined value of these variables then forms the risk rating, which dictates the severity of the risk and therefore informs how the organization will prioritize and address it. Based on the risk rating, the risk owner shall then assign a treatment decision and determine whether the organization will accept, avoid, transfer, or reduce the risk.

4. Risk response

Upon arriving at a decision on how you will address each identified risk, you can then proceed to create risk treatment plans which will detail how you will accept, avoid, transfer, or mitigate risks. Risk treatment plans encompass implementing mitigation measures that can come in the form of security controls. These include technical controls like firewalls and data encryption, and administrative controls such as putting new policies in place, routinely conducting employee cybersecurity training, and enforcing role-based access controls.

5. Monitoring

Finally, the last step in the IT risk management process is monitoring risks and mitigation measures. Organizations can verify if internal policies and framework requirements are being met and if risk management procedures and security controls are effective by performing regular internal audits. This in turn enables you to determine any process inefficiencies and take corrective action to continuously improve your IT risk management program.

Best practices for IT risk management

To help you refine your IT risk management program, here are some best practices you can apply:

• Determine risk tolerance & risk appetite: Before setting the scope of your IT risk management program, it is also necessary to define your risk tolerance, or the level of risk that you are capable of enduring, in contrast with your risk appetite, or the amount of risk you are willing to accept. This helps in making more effective decisions during the risk assessment and risk treatment stages.

• Secure leadership support: Executives and board members must be fully engaged in risk management activities, starting from policy creation, down to oversight of risk assessments, treatment plans, and control implementation, all the way to reviewing audit findings.

• Prioritize risk reporting: The organization must also produce detailed reports on risk management activities, including ongoing risk assessments, high-priority risks, the status of risk treatment plans, and other insights to support decision-making. The 6clicks platform allows you to easily generate risk reports and equips you with customizable dashboards and data visualization tools, such as risk matrices, to provide you with a comprehensive view of your risk environment.

• Implement preventive & detective controls: Aside from risk mitigation controls, preventive controls, such as patch management and multi-factor authentication (MFA), and detective controls, like intrusion detection systems (IDS) and security information and event management (SIEM) systems, are crucial for proactively preventing incidents as well as identifying and responding to them when they occur.

• Adopt a continuous approach: Lastly, continuously conducting risk assessments and internal audits allows you to ensure that identified risks and risk management strategies remain relevant to your organization. Solutions such as continuous control monitoring are also recommended to enable automated testing and ongoing validation of the effectiveness of your security controls.

Achieve robust IT risk management with 6clicks

Through its integrated IT risk management, security compliance, vendor risk management, and incident management functionalities, the 6clicks platform offers an all-in-one solution to organizations dealing with diverse cyber risks.

Aside from risk libraries, risk registers, and risk fields, 6clicks provides task management features for facilitating risk remediation. On the other hand, you can easily set up, manage, and automatically test and monitor your controls using 6clicks’ control management and continuous control monitoring features.

In case of incidents, 6clicks has incident reporting forms and a built-in register for resolving issues and incidents. Finally, use 6clicks’ vendor assessment templates and Third Parties module to evaluate, categorize, and manage your vendors.

Schedule a demo below to see the full capabilities of 6clicks in action.