Why It’s Time To Perform Your Year-End Security Risk Assessment

Change is about moving from a current situation to a new reality. Change is always a part of our lives; we can’t escape it.

Change is either proactive or reactive. Proactive change is almost always positive. It’s about making conscious choices about future events. Reactive, however, is far more risky. It’s about adjusting your current reality based on threats or opportunities that show up each day.

If you want to reduce your risk, move towards proactive change.

Proactive change involves future planning, evaluating your options, and creating a strategy to help you move forward. It’s about assessing what you currently have in place, and considering what you can do differently to build stronger business practices. Instead of waiting for things to happen, you create a plan that lowers the risk and makes everything more predictable.

Why Security Risk Assessments are important

There are two main reasons why it’s essential to perform security risk assessments annually:

1. It offers protection against future events. By learning where your vulnerabilities are, you have an opportunity to make corrections and reduce your risk of attack.

2. As a part of the medical industry, you may be required by different regulatory organizations, including HIPAA, to perform a security risk assessment each year.

Security risk assessments can help:

Create self-awareness - you can’t correct what you don’t know exists. Issues have a way of creeping up on you. An assessment highlights your biggest weaknesses, alerting you to your biggest problems.

Strengthens security - an assessment helps avoid breaches and other security problems.

Reduce long-term costs - creating systems that block risk and alert you to potential issues is much easier. You’ll save the costs of handling breaches, fixing broken processes, and dealing with a shattered reputation.

Create a template for future assessments - once you have an assessment procedure in place, you’ll have a strategy to base future assessments on. It makes the entire process more fluid, and strengthens your security plan.

Create a monitoring system - as you build your strategy, you’ll discover ways to monitor and evaluate short and long term performance. It’ll help you discover changes you can make that will have a lasting impact.

Ensure compliance - a security risk assessment is the only way to ensure you’re compliant and have a baseline for proper positioning. It provides findings and recommendations for future growth.

What to include in Security Risk Assessments

A security risk assessment looks at security from every angle. They can include:

Security audits - looks at how well you meet a predefined set of standards already established by regulatory organizations.

Vulnerability assessment - checks for weaknesses in networks, applications, and systems. It assesses where new threats could crop up and have a significant impact.

Tools and equipment assessment - this extends beyond what you use in-house to include third-party vendors too. How vulnerable are partnership relationships? Do you have strategies in place to reduce your risk?

Security policy - a security policy is derived from the plan you already have in place. Are you meeting pre-established goals? This should be updated regularly as you continue testing.

Start your security risk assessment today

By performing a year-end assessment, you will be able to identify potential risks associated with your practice, and create a strategy that allows you to close up potential threats and strengthen your approach to security. When done right, it reduces risk and guides you to continued success.

For IT Strategy, Cloud Conversion, or Help Desk Services reach out to us at Silver Linings Technology 360-450-4759.