Glossary

Automated Risk Assessment

Cyber security is a complex topic that strikes fear into the hearts of any stakeholder that could potentially be held accountable and liable for a cyber attack on their organization. Companies struggle to identify and understand what their vulnerabilities are, where to invest their cyber security budget and how likely they are to be hacked.

Automated Risk Assessment

What is Risk Assessment?

In order for an organization to identify its vulnerabilities, to understand where to invest its cybersecurity budget and to be able to manage its risk over time, it needs to start with a risk assessment. This assessment, based on a selected risk management framework, walks the organization through a series of questions regarding security controls that are recommended by industry experts to mitigate the organization’s risks. Through answering these questions, the organization is able to identify its gaps and understand what it needs to do in order to better protect itself against a cyber attack.

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Centraleyes for Free

See for yourself how the Centraleyes platform exceeds anything an old GRC
system does and eliminates the need for manual processes and spreadsheets
to give you immediate value and run a full risk assessment in less than 30 days

Learn more about Automated Risk Assessment

How are the majority of companies conducting risk assessments today?

Spreadsheets. Tools like Excel and Word, or the more collaborative Sheets and Docs respectively, are the most commonly used tools for risk assessments in the majority of small to mid sized organizations. Even large enterprise organizations that have purchased or licensed risk management tools often default to these more manual options due to the lack of automation, the unfriendly user experience and the misfit of the purchased tools to the risk assessment process – issues frequently associated with legacy risk management solutions.

The lack of automation in risk management leads to:

  • A strain on stakeholders to provide the necessary information required;
  • No foolproof verification of the collected information;
  • Lack of visibility into the results of the assessment;
  • No clear next steps defined in order to improve risk posture;
  • A risk assessment workflow that isn’t defined – requiring dedicated and experienced professionals to manage question distribution, data collection and analysis.

What is risk assessment automation?

Risk assessment automation is the use of automated risk assessment tools to orchestrate and automate the data collection process, the analysis and the ongoing remediation of cyber security controls according to a selected risk framework during a risk assessment.

Automation in risk assessments allows for:

  • Quick and immediate onboarding and initiation of a risk assessment, removing the need for learning the framework in depth;
  • The automated correlation of relevant data from connected tools to the associated controls being assessed by an organization during a risk assessment, providing verified information that is not subject to human error;
  • The cross mapping of common controls across various risk frameworks, saving the company time and resources on data collection that cannot be automatically collected;
  • The automated creation of remediation tasks based on gaps that are detected during the data collection process;
  • Automated dashboards and reporting for senior management;
  • Benchmarking and tracking of risk posture over time;
  • Live risk management.

The importance of an effective cyber risk management assessment

How are organizations running their cyber security programs? Are they reacting to fear mongers that scare them into purchasing the latest protective tool? Are they running after the hottest trends in the market for cyber security? Or are they looking at cyber security from a strategic standpoint, starting with a cyber risk assessment so that they can understand what their risks are and how to prioritize the most severe gaps?

All companies have some limit to their cyber security budget, so understanding what needs to be done first and what will have the biggest impact on the organization’s risk posture will help management select the most needed tools, implement best practices and protect the organization more effectively. 

Start Getting Value With
Centraleyes for Free

See for yourself how the Centraleyes platform exceeds anything an old GRC
system does and eliminates the need for manual processes and spreadsheets
to give you immediate value and run a full risk assessment in less than 30 days

Want to talk to Centraleyes about Automated Risk Assessment?

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