Introduction
Organizations have recently shifted their attention towards investing more in information technology. While this is the case, only a few of them seem to take security matters seriously. Cyber attack remains to be a critical issue as far as information technology is concerned. According to Trim and Lee (2021), cyber attack and ransom attacks have been on the rise in the recent past. The authors further noted that the annual cost of cyber crime incurred by organizations in the US has increased by 80 percent from 2015 to 2020 (Trim and Lee, 2021). Although most organizations are aware of the dangers caused by hackers such as loss of money and data, they have failed to keep their information systems updated. In fact, the problem today is that many organizations are not aware of which information assets and systems are most vulnerable. Therefore, risk assessment is an important conceptual framework because it strives to create security awareness and readiness, improve productivity, facilitate communication and, at the same time, identify the maturity level of security controls.
Risk Assessment Overview
The most critical component of risk assessment (RA) is the ability for an organization to carefully examine potential points of threats that affect how they undertake their daily activities. Once this is done, the individual/ organization will identify the most appropriate course of action of minimizing the impact of these threats. According to Landoll (2021), risk assessment aims at identifying risks by using evidence-based control measures. Landoll (2021) further notes that the best control measures are those that aim at eliminating the risk in totality. However, there are a times when this approach may not work– the focus will then shift to minimizing the risk.
In line with the above, there are two categories of risk assessments – qualitative and quantitative risk assessments (Figure 1). This essay emphasizes the need to incorporate key aspects of the two categories in developing an evidence-based conceptual framework for information technology. On one hand, quantitative risk assessment is concerned with helping the leadership determine the financial impacts of different risks. On the other hand, qualitative risk assessment focuses on the human aspects of the risks.
Risk Assessment as a Conceptual Framework for IT
Risk assessment is an important conceptual framework for information technology regardless of the type and nature of the organization. For some businesses, especially small ones, the work of putting together a team to help with the management of information technology might appear complicated. However, the reality is that risk assessment is essential for every business. As a matter of fact, this type of assessment, besides informing the management about the state of security of IT infrastructure, helps facilitate organizational security strategy. The paragraphs below discuss why risk assessment is an important conceptual framework, specifically for information technology.
Firstly, risk assessment is a means to improving productivity and profitability. Organizations that constantly conduct RA tend to have a clear understanding of where their information security team should dedicate their time – they will use this time effectively. Instead of having to react to problems as they emerge, the organization will use this time for fixing the existing vulnerabilities in the security practices and processes. The aim here, as elucidated by Stevenson (2018), is to avoid the issue from occurring in the first place. Ideally RA as a conceptual framework guides organizations in prioritizing risks – those that call for immediate attention and those that require minimum resources to address. In essence, productivity will eventually improve because RA is done with the intention of identifying vulnerabilities in the existing IT infrastructure and enterprise applications. This means that the organization will have enough time to direct its resources towards achieving the set goals.
Secondly, risk assessment plays a critical role of identifying the maturity level of the available security controls and its accompanying tool usage. For instance, RA can be used in evaluating the existing defenses and the preventative measures previously put in place. Once areas that require urgent improvement are identified, the team will effectively map them against the current technology landscape. This will help theteam determine whether additional security controls are needed to improve security and defense mechanism (Stevenson, 2018). In essence, RA is critical in the sense that it highlights all remediation measures needed to maximize security and avert emerging and future challenges.
Thirdly, risk assessment helps improve information security by facilitating communication and collaboration among different players in the organization. Ideally, the IT security will engage in some kind of constructive conversations with different departments to understand how and why they operate as a single entity and as part of a system. Similarly these conversations allow teams to examine how employees use different systems and the way information flows in them (Landoll, 2021). In doing so, the security team will learn more about other people’s positions and measures in order to develop appropriate protocols needed to improve performance. Furthermore, RA provides IT teams an opportunity to communicate the benefits of information security to other members of the organization – this helps each employee understand how they can contribute towards improving security compliance objectives.
Lastly, risk assessment is important because it gauges organization’s security awareness and readiness. This is the case because a proper assessment requires a lot of collaboration among key members – it involves the participation of IT security personnel as well as various employees and managers (Landoll, 2021). This form of participation is used to gauge the awareness of these individuals and departments about the possible security threats, vulnerabilities and the possible solutions. Besides this, RA provides an overview of how well the employees and other individuals in the organization understand and comply with the laid-down security policies and standards. In essence, risk assessment is an important conceptual framework for information technology because it aims at creating awareness about the available security measures.
Conclusion
Risk assessment is increasingly becoming an important conceptual framework for information technology due to its role of ensuring organizations are better prepared when dealing with security related threats. Risk assessment, as discussed above, allows organizations to carefully examine potential point of threats in order to come up with the best course of action of preventing. There are several reasons that help demonstrate why RA is an important conceptual framework for information technology. Firstly, it provides a means of improving productivity and profitability. Secondly, it plays a critical role identifying the maturity level of the available security controls and its accompanying tool usage. Lastly, RA strives to improve information security by facilitating communication and collaboration among different players.
References
Abdel-Basset, M., Gunasekaran, M., Mohamed, M., & Chilamkurti, N. (2019). A framework for risk assessment, management and evaluation: Economic tool for quantifying risks in supply chain. Future Generation Computer Systems, 90(1), 489-502. Web.
Landoll, D. (2021). The security risk assessment handbook: A complete guide for performing security risk assessments. CRC Press.
Stevenson, M. (2018). Assessing risk assessment in action. Minnesota. Law. Review.10(5), 303-384
Trim, P. R., & Lee, Y. I. (2021). The global cyber security model: counteracting cyber attacks through a resilient partnership arrangement. Big Data and Cognitive Computing, 5(3), 32-40. Web.