4.0 BUSINESS IMPACT AND INFORMATION RISK ASSESSMENTS
4.1 Identification of Information Assets
The first step in assessing the business impact and risk of an IT system is to determine the scope of the effort. The boundaries of the IT system is identified along with the resources and information that make up the system. This identification of information assets establish the scope of the risk assessment effort, delineates the operational authorization boundaries, and provides information essential to defining the risk.
This exercise can be carried out via questionnaire, on-site interviews, document review or use of automated scanning tool. Information gathering can be conducted throughout the risk assessment process.
4.2 Establish requirements for Business Continuity & Recovery
The requirements of Business Continuity & Recovery is to prepare for and cope with unplanned events that will have significant impact on its operations and commitment to customers.
The pre-defined procedures documented herein must not be interpreted as the only course of action because disaster comes in various forms, complexity and severity. The possible combinations of events happening after a disaster cannot be entirely anticipated. Situations not described in the BCP are to be executed using common sense by improvising beyond the documented BCP.
A single framework or methodology for IT disaster recovery planning must be maintained to ensure that all plans are consistent, and to identify priorities for testing and maintenance. The IT disaster recovery planning framework must include the following: -
• IT emergency procedures: Emergency procedures which describe the actions to be taken following an incident.
• IT fallback procedures: Fallback procedures which describe the actions to be taken to move important activities or support services to alternative temporary locations and to bring business processes back into operation in the required time scales.
• IT resumption procedures: Resumption procedures which describe the actions to be taken to return to normal business operations.
• IT recovery test schedule: Maintenance schedule which specifies how and when the plan will be tested, and the process for maintaining the plan.
• Awareness and training activities which are designed to create understanding of the business continuity processes and ensure that the processes continue to be effective.
• List responsibilities of individuals, describing who is responsible for executing which component of the plan. Alternatives must be nominated as required.
Each plan must have a specific owner. Emergency procedures, manual fallback plans and resumption plans must be within the responsibility of the Owners of the appropriate resources or processes involved. Fallback arrangements for alternative technical services, such as information processing facilities must also be in place.
4.3 Identification Threat and Vulnerabilities
A threat is the potential for a particular threat-source to successfully exercise a particular vulnerability. Vulnerability is a weakness that can be accidentally triggered or intentionally exploited. A threat-source does not present a risk when there is no vulnerability that can be exercised. In determining the likelihood of a threat, one must consider threat-sources, potential vulnerabilities and existing controls.
A threat-source is defined as any circumstance or event with potential to cause harm to an IT system. The common threat-source can be human or environmental.
The analysis of the threat to an IT system must include an analysis of the vulnerabilities associated with the system environment. The goal of this is to develop a list of system vulnerabilities (flaws or weakness) that could be exploited by the potential threat-source. The following is the references used by GHL as a source of vulnerability information.
References:
1. https://cve.mitre.org/cve/index.html
2. http://www.securityfocus.com/
3. https://www.cvedetails.com/
4.4 Determining the likelihood of the threats
The determination of risk for a particular threat/vulnerability pair is:
• the likelihood of a given threat-source’s attempt to exercise a given vulnerability
• the magnitude of the impact should the threat-source successfully exercise the vulnerability
• the adequacy of planned or existing security controls for reducing or eliminating the risk.
The risk scale of Low, Medium and High, represents the degree or level of risk to which an IT system, facility, or procedure might be exposed if a given vulnerability were exercised. The risk scale also presents actions that senior management, the mission owners, must take for each risk level. This is represented by the table below
Risk Scale Risk Description and Necessary Actions
High If an observation or finding is evaluated as a high risk, there is a strong need for corrective measures. An existing system may continue to operate, but a corrective action