Multi Task 2

Case Project 2-1: Conducting Risk Assessment and Analysis

Case Project 2-1: Conducting Risk Assessment and Analysis

Risk assessment can be as simple as noting an unlocked door or a password written on a note, or it can be a complex process requiring several team members and months to complete. A large enterprise environment probably has multiple locations, diverse activities, and a wide array of resources to evaluate. You don’t need such a complex network, however, for your running case project; the main idea is to learn how to apply your knowledge in a methodical fashion to produce useful and accurate data. Approaching a task such as risk assessment without a strategy means repeating steps, wasting resources, and achieving mediocre results at best. Even worse, you might miss critical information.

You need the network and facility diagrams you completed in Chapter 1 for this project. Your instructor will provide documentation templates. Make additional copies as needed. In a real risk analysis process, one of the first steps is meeting with all department managers, upper management, employee representatives, workers in the production environment, human resources staff, and other staff members to get their input. Without input from the people actually doing the work, you might not think of essential factors. That isn’t possible here, so direct any questions you have to your instructor, or do independent research to find your answers.

Tasks

1. First, identify the business processes that must continue for the organization to keep functioning—for example, collecting money from customers, receiving and processing sales, developing new products, and so on. Document major business processes that drive LedGrafix, using the Business Process column of the Business Process Identification Worksheet (see “Business Process Identification Worksheet Draft x” in “worksheets.zip”). Assign a priority level to each process (using the priority rankings in the following list). Write down the department that performs the process, and leave the Assets Used column blank for now.

· Critical—Absolutely necessary for business operations to continue. Loss of a critical process halts business activities.

· Necessary—Contributes to smooth, efficient operations. Loss of a necessary process doesn’t halt business operations but degrades working conditions, slows production, or contributes to errors.

· Desirable—Contributes to enhanced performance and productivity and helps create a more comfortable working environment, but loss of a desirable process doesn’t halt or negatively affect operations.

2. Next, identify the organization’s assets. Using the Asset Identification Worksheet your instructor provides (see “Asset Identification Worksheet Draft x” in “worksheets.zip”), list each asset, its location, and approximate value, if known. (For multiple identical assets, describe the asset and list the quantity instead of listing each individual asset.) In organization-wide risk assessments, you would list all assets, including office furniture, industrial equipment, personnel, and other assets. For this project, stick to information technology assets, such as computers, servers, and networking equipment. The information you enter depends on the network design you completed in Chapter 1. All the equipment needed to build your network should be listed here as well as any cabling in the facility. (Assume the facility is already wired for a computer network with network drops available for each computer.) Hint: Remember to list items such as electricity and your Internet connection.

3. Next, determine which assets support each business process. On your Business Process Identification Worksheet (see “Business Process Identification Worksheet Draft x” in “worksheets.zip”), list the assets needed for each business process in the Assets Used column.

4. Each process should be documented and have a priority assigned to it. Next, transfer the priority rankings to your Asset Identification Work sheet. Now you know which assets are the most critical to restore and warrant the most expense and effort to secure. You also have the documentation to back up your security actions for each item.

5. The final step is assessing existing threats. Table 2-6 shows examples of ways to evaluate some types of threats and suggests ways to quantify them. On the Threat Identification and Assessment Works sheet (see “Threat Identification and Assessment Worksheet Draft x” in “worksheets.zip”), list each possible threat. Be sure to consider threats from geographic and physical factors, personnel, malicious attack or sabotage, and accidents. Also, examine the facility diagram you created for flaws in the facility layout or structure that could pose a threat, such as air-conditioning failure or loss of electrical service. Assess the probability of occurrence (POC) on a 1 to 10 scale, with 1 being the lowest and 10 the highest, and assign those ratings in the POC column for each threat.

Table 2-6 Threat evaluation and quantification methods

Type of threat

How to quantify

Severe rainstorm, tornado, hurricane, earthquake, wilderness fire, or flood

Collect data on frequency, severity, and proximity to facilities. Evaluate the past quality and speed of local and regional emergency response systems to determine whether they helped minimize loss.

Train derailment, auto/truck accident, toxic air pollution caused by accident, or plane crash

Collect data on the proximity of railroads, highways, and airports to facilities. Evaluate the construction quality of transportation systems and the rate of serious accidents on each system.

Building explosion or fire

Collect data on the frequency and severity of past incidents. Evaluate local emergency response to determine its effectiveness.

Militant group attacking facilities, riot, or civil unrest

Collect data on the political stability of the region where facilities are located. Compile and evaluate a list of groups that might have specific political or social issues with the organization.

Computer hack (external) or computer fraud (internal)

Examine data on the frequency and severity of past incidents. Evaluate the effectiveness of existing computer security measures.

6. Next, using the Asset Identification Worksheet (see “Asset Identification Worksheet Draft x” in “worksheets.zip”), determine which assets would be affected by each threat. List those assets in the Assets Affected column of theThreat Identification and Assessment Work sheet. For an electrical outage, for example, list all assets requiring electricity to operate; for a hardware failure, list all assets a hardware failure would disrupt, damage, or destroy.

7. In the Consequence column, enter the consequences of the threat occurring, using the following designations:

· Catastrophic (C)—Total loss of business processes or functions for one week or more. Potential complete failure of business.

· Severe (S)—Business would be unable to continue functioning for 24 to 48 hours. Loss of revenue, damage to reputation or confidence, reduction of productivity, complete loss of critical data or systems.

· Moderate (M)—Business could continue after an interruption of no more than 4 hours. Some loss of productivity and damage or destruction of important information or systems.

· Insignificant (I)—Business could continue functioning without interruption. Some cost incurred for repairs or recovery. Minor equipment or facility damage. Minor productivity loss and little or no loss of important data.

8. Next, rate the severity of each threat in the Severity column, using the same designations as in the preceding list for consequences (C, S, M, or I). You derive these ratings by combining the probability of occurrence, the asset’s priority ranking, and the potential consequences of a threat occurring. For example, if an asset has a Critical (C) priority ranking and a Catastrophic (C) consequence rating, it has a Catastrophic (C) severity rating. If you have mixed or contradictory ratings, you need to re-evaluate the asset and use common sense. A terrorist attack that destroys the facility and kills half the staff might have a probability of occurrence (POC) of only 1 (depending on your location), but if it happened, the consequences would definitely be catastrophic. Even so, because of the low POC, you wouldn’t necessarily rank its severity as catastrophic.

9. Finally, on theThreat Mitigation Worksheet (see “Threat Mitigation Worksheet Draft x” in “worksheets.zip”), list assets that are ranked as the most critical and threatened with the highest severity. In the MitigationTechniques column, list recommendations for mitigating threats to those assets. For example, to mitigate the threat of an electrical outage damaging a critical server, you might suggest a high-end uninterruptible power supply (UPS).

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