Risk Assessment Methodology

  • Identify the information assets that need protecting


  • Describe the architecture of the information system to be deployed


  • Identify and rank the threats to those information assets based on the architecture

    • Desktop
    • Server
    • Network

  • Identify the most serious threats and develop solutions to mitigate the threats as much as possible. Typically,

    • Insecure user computing environment (viruses, unattended desktops)
    • Server operating system security; inadequate system administration
    • Poor physical server environment
    • Network encryption of passwords and data

  • Make specific recommendations of solutions for deployment

    • Policy
    • Stronger access control
    • Encryption
    • Secure server
    • Secure network
See full paper (/noam/cip/akc-secu.pdf)