Managing IT Risk is integral to any business these days. An overview understanding of IT risk enables organizations to improve network security, and compliance status. Failing to asses and mitigate IT risks makes the organization vulnerable to data security breaches in turn leading to financial losses. And IT risk management is not the sole responsibility of IT staff.

Owing to growth in malware attacks and security loopholes, IT risks have increased. To curb them, regulations are made and updated leading to incremental costs to comply with these new regulations. What organizations need is an intelligent IT risk management solution.

Any threat to your information technology, data, critical systems and electronic servers can be classified under IT risk. Management is keen to identify weaknesses, setup controls and respond to these risks on time so as to ensure secure business operations.

For effective IT risk management, it is important that management is informed of IT threats and assess the business impact of these threats and decide on appropriate control measures. Proper alignment of IT risk identification, assessment and mitigation can help risk professionals achieve higher security levels and better compliance.

However,  actionable data needs to be provided to management to help them decide further course of action.

The 4 step process would help derive actionable data.

Identify Your IT Assets

Identify your IT assets across the organization, map the network and data flow across the servers holding sensitive and confidential information. Classify the assets based on Data Confidentiality, Data integrity risk, and Relevance risk. Also, map the assets to specific business processes which will help in deciding the business value of the asset.

Establish Controls

Upon identification and classification of IT assets, assign controls to them so as to mitigate threshold level IT risks automatically. Set-up automated controls data collection so as to provide data logs to the auditors during the audit process. Find and fix issues before they explode to a bigger problem. Keep track of any trouble areas on regular basis and monitor the controls data for any discrepancies.Automation helps to design relevant and accurate reports customizable to audit requirements.

Mitigation of IT Risks

Inspite of setting up strict internal controls and data security, the organization needs to be ready for any unforeseen circumstances. Develop standard operating procedures for standard and frequent IT risks so that it can be implemented with little help from IT risk professional. The best way to assess and prioritize IT risks is to assign the business value of the risk. This would help assess the impact of the risk on business functions. Run automated testing and reporting so that no malicious activities go unnoticed.

Manage

Frequent measuring the IT risk metrics and constantly engaging with the employees exposed to IT risk will help spot any unwanted activities, trends and predict any possible risks. Proactive risk mitigation would not hamper the business process. Use quantifiable metrics to understand and communicate the seriousness of IT risk to the management to facilitate better decision making.

VComply provides a secured IT risk management solution. It helps auditors to discuss IT Risk related issues across the organization and help track any risk-based internal controls.

To know more about IT Risk management, click here.

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