Understanding
Cybersecurity Risk
Assessment
Table of contents
Understanding Cybersecurity Risk Assessments 3
Overview of the Cybersecurity Risk Assessment Process 4
Cybersecurity Risk Assessment Methods 5
Resources for Cybersecurity Risk Assessments 5
Center for Internet Security Risk Assessment Method (CIS RAM) 5
NIST SP 800-30 6
ISO/IEC 27000 6
NIST Risk Management Framework 6
Key Components of a Cybersecurity Risk Assessment 7
Risk Assessment Templates 8
HIPAA: Risk Assessment Template 8
GDPR: Data Protection Impact Assessment (DPIA) Template 10
About Netwrix 15
Cybersecurity threats are becoming more common and sophisticated — and breaches are increasingly costly.
Indeed, the average global cost of a data breach reached $4.45 million, in 2023, an increase of 15% increase in
just three years.
Regular cybersecurity risk assessments can help your organization protect its data — and its business. Read
this guide to learn about the benefits of cybersecurity risk assessments, the types of assessments and their key
components. Then download the free information security risk assessment templates we provide to get you
started with assessments for HIPAA and GDPR complianc.
Understanding Cybersecurity Risk
Assessments
A cybersecurity risk assessment evaluates an organization’s ability to identify, defend against and prioritize
threats to its data and systems. The assessment involves identifying information security risks — threats that can
potentially exploit your assets’ vulnerabilities.
Every organization, regardless of size or sector, should conduct regular cybersecurity and IT risk assessments. The
information you glean can help you implement an effective security policy and appropriately allocate resources
to improve your security. This can include remediating vulnerabilities like overprovisioned user accounts and
misconfigurations, as well as improving threat detection and response capabilities to ensure better defense
against password-guessing, phishing, ransomware and other attacks. By strengthening cybersecurity, you reduce
your risk of data loss, financial losses, lawsuits and lasting reputational damage.
Moreover, cybersecurity risk assessments are invaluable for achieving and maintaining compliance with
regulations such as HIPAA and GDPR, so you can avoid steep fines and other penalties. The templates provided
at the link below provide frameworks for performing risk assessments to help with HIPAA and GDPR compliance.
Overview of the Cybersecurity Risk
Assessment Process
At a high level, the cybersecurity risk assessment process includes the following steps:
1. Locate all valuable assets in your organization that could be hurt by threats. Examples include websites,
servers, trade secrets and partner documents.
2. Identify the potential consequences if each asset is damaged, including financial losses, legal costs, data loss
and system downtime.
3. Identify threats and their level. Threats are any event that can cause harm to your assets and your company’s
security posture. Examples include system failures, natural disasters, malicious human actions and human errors.
4. Identify vulnerabilities and evaluate the likelihood that third parties will exploit them. Vulnerabilities are
weaknesses that could allow a third party to breach your security and harm your assets.
5. Assess risks. Risks are the chances that a given threat will exploit the environment’s vulnerabilities and cause
harm to one or more assets, leading to monetary damages. Risk levels can be assigned either qualitative
categories (such as high, moderate and low) or numerical values. Smaller organizations may opt for a
qualitative approach, at least initially, because it’s simpler to execute, but quantitative assessments are more
helpful for detailed cost-benefit analyses.
6. Create a risk management plan with the collected data. Here is an example in table form:
Threat Vulnerability Asset and consequences Risk Solution
7. Create an IT infrastructure enhancement strategy to mitigate the most important vulnerabilities and get a
final sign-off from management.
8. Define mitigation processes. This will help you prevent cybersecurity incidents from happening in the future
or, if they do happen, make them less harmful.
Cybersecurity Risk Assessment Methods
Organizations can choose from several cybersecurity risk assessment methods, including the following:
Generic risk assessments follow a template and are used for a wide range of cases. They usually ask generic
questions to offer visibility into risks, such as “Do you use firewalls?” and “Do you use end-to-end encryption?”
This is a basic type of risk assessment that should be supplemented by more complex tools.
Site-specific risk assessments typically focus on certain use cases, people, environments or locations. They’re
usually associated with a geographic location, such as a specific office. Therefore, they aren’t particularly
useful if your company has a hyper-connected ecosystem in which risks can quickly spread from one branch
or area to another.
Dynamic risk assessments provide continuous tracking and responses. This method empowers teams to
constantly monitor for emerging risks in real time and mitigate them as soon as possible.
Resources for Cybersecurity Risk
Assessments
To conduct cybersecurity risk assessments, organizations, regardless of size or sector, can reference the following
resources.
Center for Internet Security Risk Assessment Method
(CIS RAM)
Organizations can use CIS RAM to assess their cybersecurity posture against the CIS Critical Security Controls, a
set of best practices for improving cybersecurity. CIS RAM can be used in several ways:
Risk analysts can use CIS RAM to simulate foreseeable threats.
Experienced cybersecurity experts can use CIS RAM instructions to model threats against assets and
determine the appropriate configuration for protecting data assets.
Cyber risk experts can use CIS RAM to analyze risks based on attack paths.
NIST SP 800-30
NIST SP 800-30 also provides guidance on conducting risk assessments. While it is aimed at federal information
systems and organizations, it can be used by any organization interested in improving cybersecurity and risk
management.
It explores how risk assessments can be applied across three risk management tiers:
Tier 1 — Organization
Tier 2 — Mission/business process
Tier 3 — Information system
These tiers inform the scope of the risk assessment and affect its impacts.
ISO/IEC 27000
ISO/IEC 27000 is an international family of standards for information security risk management. It includes:
ISO/IEC 27000 addresses security for any kind of information technology.
ISO/IEC 27001 outlines how organizations can improve information security, cybersecurity and privacy
protection using an information security management system (ISMS).
ISO/IEC 27002 builds on ISO/IEC 27001 by providing guidance on choosing appropriate security controls as
part of ISMS deployment.
NIST Risk Management Framework
The NIST Risk Management Framework helps organizations determine whether their risk management controls
have been implemented correctly, are working as intended, and are producing the desired outcome in regard to
meeting their security and privacy requirements.
The NIST Risk Management Framework helps organizations with the following:
▪ Selecting risk assessors and assessment teams
▪ Developing a plan of action and milestones for risk assessments
▪ Developing security and privacy assessment reports
▪ Ensuring control assessments are conducted according to assessment plans
▪ Updating privacy and security plans to reflect control implementation changes based on remediation actions
and assessments
Key Components of a Cybersecurity
Risk Assessment
A robust cybersecurity risk assessment should have the following key components:
Introduction — Explain how and why the company has handled the assessment process. Include a descrip-
tion of the systems and software reviewed and specify who was responsible for gathering, providing, and
assessing information.
Purpose — Explain why the risk assessment is being performed.
Scope — Define the scope of the IT system assessment. Describe the users, system components and other
details to be considered in the cybersecurity risk assessment.
System description — List the hardware, systems, interfaces, software and data that were examined, as well
as what was out of the assessment’s scope.
Participants — List names and roles of all participants, including the risk assessment team, the asset owners,
and the IT and security teams.
Assessment approach — Explain the techniques and methodology used for the risk assessment.
Risk identification and assessment — Compile the assessment results.
Data inventory — Identify all of the valuable assets in scope, including regulated data, critical data, servers
and other types of data whose exposure would have a significant impact on business operations.
System users — Detail who uses the systems, including their level of access and location.
Threats — Catalog threats, such as system failures, natural disasters, malicious human actions and human errors.
Vulnerabilities — Identify weaknesses and security gaps that could allow threats to violate your security. For
example, a lack of a disaster recovery plan could lead to the loss of important data in case of disaster.
Risk determination — Assess the possibility that vulnerabilities will lead to damage. Make sure to perform
risk probability determination, impact analysis and risk-level evaluation.
Risk assessment results — List vulnerabilities and threats, assess the risk of each, and provide recommen-
dations for implementing controls.
Risk Assessment Templates
The templates provided in this document are designed to offer guidance for developing a risk assessment process
that helps your organization assess its compliance with HIPAA and GDPR. They are not meant to be used as-is for
formal risk assessments.
HIPAA: Risk Assessment Template
Section Comments
Introduction: Explain why this document exists.
Purpose: Explain why you need a risk
assessment.
Scope: Document your company’s electronic
protected health information (ePHI) flow. List and
describe all system components, field site locations,
elements, users, and other relevant details.
Approach: Explain the methods used to perform
the risk assessment.
Participants: Identify the participants
responsible for interacting with ePHI. Include
their names and roles.
Techniques: List the methods for identifying
and inventorying ePHI data, processes, physical
devices and procedures.
Risk documentation: Explain when the
company performs risk assessments, how
risks are determined, and the risk classification
system (qualitative levels or numerical scale).
System description: Talk about the boundaries
of the IT system under consideration and the
information and resources that make up the
system.
System-related information: Include relevant System name
information and a summary of the processing
environment.
System owner
Physical location
Major business
function
Description and
components
Interfaces and
boundaries
Data sensitivity
Overall IT sensi-
tivity rating and
classification
System users: Explain who uses the system. System name
User category
Access level
Number of users
System owner
Physical location
Data inventory: Document all data and where Type of data Description Level of sensitivity
it is received, stored, transmitted or maintained.
Examples include ePHI, test results, billing data
and medical procedures.
ePHI Electronic protected High
health information
Test results
Billing data
Medical procedures
Threats: Create a catalog of anticipated threats.
Prioritize human threats from criminals, patients,
ex-employees, and others who have access to
and knowledge of the system or motivation to
harm your company.
Vulnerabilities: List all non-technical and
technical vulnerabilities that potential threats
could exploit or trigger.
Security measures: Assess and document the
effectiveness of all non-technical and technical
controls that have been or will be implemented
for risk mitigation.
Risk assessment results: Talk about the
vulnerabilities and the threats that can
exploit them, measure each risk, and provide
recommendations for corrective action or control
implementation. Consider presenting detailed
results in a separate spreadsheet or appendix.
Revision history: Track changes to your HIPAA Version Published Author
risk assessment.
1.0
1.1
1.2
GDPR: Data Protection Impact
Assessment (DPIA) Template
Section Comments
Identify the need for a data protection im- Section Section Section Section
pact assessment (DPIA). Document its nature,
scope, context and purpose.
Explain the data processing operations and How is data being
their purposes. collected and used?
Where and how is
data being stored?
Where are you
collecting the data
from?
How much data is
being collected?
How many data
subjects have been
affected?
Where are the data
processing activities
occurring?
What are the data
retention require-
ments?
Assess the necessity and proportionality of Is there a legal
the data collection and processing. basis for gathering
this data?
Does the organiza-
tion have appro-
priate consent
measures?
Were and are
vulnerable data
subjects involved?
Is the data process-
ing necessary to
achieve the pro-
ject's objectives?
Are there ways to
minimize consumer
data usage?
Are data subjects'
and consumers'
rights being up-
held?
Have previous
projects performed
similar processing?
If so, were cyberse-
curity flaws spotted
and fixed?
Consult relevant and interested parties Project
throughout the DPIA. These include project stakeholders
stakeholders, outside experts, data protection
officers (DPOs), and data subjects and their Outside
representatives. experts
DPOs
Data
subjects and their
representatives
Spot and evaluate risks to personal data.
Create a prioritized list of your company’s assets
and identify vulnerabilities.
Identify measures for addressing and
mitigating risks. Document which risks each
mitigation measure can address and how.
Get the sign-off from relevant parties, such as
the DPO.
Deploy measures for addressing risks.
Produce a final DPIA report with the following
information:
▪ A detailed explanation of the project and its
purpose
▪ An assessment of the data processing scope and
needs
▪ An assessment of consumer privacy and data
protection risks
▪ An explanation of how the organization will com-
ply with GDPR requirements and mitigate risks
Revision history: Track changes to your GDPR Version Published Author
risk assessment.
1.0
1.1
1.2
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About Netwrix
Netwrix makes data security easy. Since 2006, Netwrix solutions have been simplifying the lives of security
professionals by enabling them to identify and protect sensitive data to reduce the risk of a breach, and to detect,
respond to and recover from attacks, limiting their impact. More than 13,000 organizations worldwide rely on
Netwrix solutions to strengthen their security and compliance posture across all three primary attack vectors:
data, identity and infrastructure.
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