Do you know what threats your IT infrastructure faces?
As the threats facing organizations and their networks continue to grow, so does the importance of cybersecurity. Companies need to know their vulnerabilities and what cyber threats await—hence the importance of IT risk management.
With that in mind, let’s explore IT risk management, why it matters, and how it can strengthen your security.
What is IT Risk Management?
IT risk management is the assessment and management of threats and vulnerabilities that can compromise an organization’s information assets.
These threats can include cyberattacks, phishing, data breaches, and more, any of which could wreak havoc if left unchecked. As such, having the right IT risk management tools and framework in place is vital for protecting systems and data as well as ensuring regulatory compliance.
Types of IT Cyber Threats
First, we need to understand what kind of threats IT infrastructures face. What risks and dangers must be accounted for when planning an IT risk management framework?
IT cyber threats include:
Malware: malicious software designed to harm or exploit networks, including viruses and spyware.
Phishing: using social engineering and fake messages to trick employees into giving bad actors their login credentials and other personal information.
Ransomware: A specific type of malware that locks down and encrypts entire systems until the owners pay the attacker to release their data.
Insider threats: individuals in an organization who misuse their access authorization to steal or leak sensitive information.
Cyber attacks: attacks such as DDOS, session hijacking, DNS spoofing, or brute-force attacks designed to infiltrate or damage a company’s network or systems.
Data breaches: hackers or other bad actors stealing and selling sensitive, personal, or proprietary information.
Any of these could cause untold damage to a company, whether it’s by locking out users, leaking sensitive information, or destroying data. Organizations need to be aware of these threats and take steps to mitigate them.
Why is IT Risk Management Important?
IT risk management is critical for modern businesses, especially with the rise of the Internet of Things (IoT) and bring-your-own-device (BYOD), making the world more digital, mobile, and interconnected.
IT risk management helps protect sensitive data by identifying, analyzing, and addressing potential threats. This helps prevent both financial and reputational damage, as stopping attacks and threats in their tracks keeps your business running smoothly.
Of course, many businesses also have security and IT compliance standards they must follow. IT risk management can also help ensure you’re meeting your security obligations.
Essential Steps in the IT Risk Management Process
IT risk management can be a complicated process for those unfamiliar with it. Fortunately, it can be approached one step at a time for an effective and efficient experience:
Risk identification: Find and identify potential IT security threats and vulnerabilities.
Risk assessment: Determine the potential damages and worst-case scenario of each risk.
Risk mitigation: Develop and implement strategies to address the risks and mitigate threats.
Monitoring: Continue to monitor your IT environment and watch out for future threats.
Top 5 Risk Management Frameworks to Strengthen IT Security
Fortunately, you don’t have to start your risk management blind. There are multiple standards and frameworks designed to help guide your risk management strategy based on your business needs.
Five of the top international standards are:
ISO 27001: ISO 27001 is a security standard providing organizations a cost-effective means of enforcing information security, based on the principles of confidentiality, integrity, and availability.
COSO Enterprise Risk Management: The COSO Enterprise Risk Management (ERM) framework guides organizations in integrating risk management into their strategy. It’s based on eight components, including objectives, event identification, risk assessment, risk response, and monitoring.
NIST: The NIST Cybersecurity Framework provides guidance on managing cybersecurity risks and is broken into five key functions: identify, protect, detect, respond, and recover.
GRC Capability Model: The Governance, Risk, and Compliance (GRC) Capability Model, also known as the OCEG Red Book, provides guidelines for integrated governance and compliance. It’s based on four major components: learn, align, perform, and review.
COBIT: COBIT, which stands for “Control Objectives for Information and Related Technologies,” is a framework for IT management and governance built on five principles and seven supporting enablers, including planning, implementing, supporting, and monitoring.
Effective Strategies and Best Practices for IT Risk Management
Of course, IT risk management requires more than just identifying risks — you also need to take steps to address and mitigate them if you want to ensure operational security. As such, it helps to look at IT risk management best practices and strategies.
Risk prioritization is a key step. Your audits and tests will likely reveal several potential risks, not all of which can be addressed quickly or at once. In such an instance, it’s important to identify the biggest threats so you can focus on them first, rather than spending resources on less pressing matters.
Human error is one of the biggest threats any company can face, which is why staff training is an important part of risk management. Employees across the company should be trained on security best practices, password security, how to prevent phishing, and so on.
Of course, risk management is not a one-and-done process. Continuous monitoring is vital to spot any new risks, threats, or vulnerabilities that may appear and address them as quickly as possible.
Above all, it’s essential to take a proactive approach to risk management. If you let a risk go unaddressed, it leaves your IT infrastructure with a gaping vulnerability that bad actors can leverage against you, so security should always be at the front of your mind.
Get Started with Splashtop AEM for Enhanced IT Risk Management
One of the best ways to manage your IT environment and monitor for risks and threats is with an endpoint management solution that lets you support multiple endpoints from a single interface. Fortunately, Splashtop AEM is just that solution.
Splashtop AEM enables you to manage and monitor endpoints, roll out patches and updates across devices, and proactively identify and resolve issues. This makes it a powerful tool for endpoint security and risk management, making it easy to defend and support your entire network and IT environment from a single screen.
Plus, with the Splashtop Antivirus add-on, you can seamlessly customize your policies, scan for threats, and protect devices from malware and cyberattacks.
You can experience Splashtop for yourself when you get started with a free trial:
