ISO 27001 risk treatment is very important for company that want to enhance their IT security and earn the certification. By having ISO 27001 certification the company will gain a lot of advantage. But to get it, you need to pass several tests regarding your company’s IT security especially when it comes to deal with the risk. That is why, you need to have the right plan if you want to be certified.
What is ISO 27001 risk treatment?
ISO 27001 risk treatment is a plan which document and outline steps that needed to be taken in order to mitigate various risk as stated in the certification. It is important to note that each company need to create their own plan which suitable for the business need.
This treatment is very important for the certification as it show the roadmap that needed to be done to achieve compliance which then gain the company ISO 27001 the certification. Thus, if you want to get the certification, you need to create treatment plan to comply with the requirements.
The treatment should give clear outline about the steps that the company will do to mitigate various security risk. Especially since there are different types of security risk that your company might have. Thus, you need to create plan for each of those security risk and mitigate the issue.
Different Types of Security Risk
Before creating the right treatment to mitigate the risk, the first thing that you need to do is to know the types of risk available. There are a view common risks that the company might encounter such as:
- Malware
Actually, malware itself is a software which can be use to damage the company’s system and environment. In order to mitigate this type of risk, the company should implement firewalls and antivirus software.
Remember that the antivirus as well as the firewall should be update continuously as there are new malware each day that might threaten the system.
- Data Breach
Having the company’s data breached often cause big impact that might be devastating for some business. This risk will not only affect the company’s finance but also the reputation.
That is why, in order to mitigate this type of security risk, you need to have a strong security and ISO 27001 risk treatment. You can try to implement access control protocol as well as data encryption that will give better security to the data.
- Data Loss
This type of risk can happen because various factors such as malicious attack, human error or hardware failure. Thus, to mitigate this type of security risk then you need to implement recovery system and backup system.
- Social engineering
This type of security risk uses human interaction in order to get the sensitive information. As the main issue in this security risk is the human, thus to mitigate this type of risk you need to educate the users with security training.
- Phishing
This risk is a scam that usually happen online where user is tricked to disclose sensitive information. This risk is also considered as social engineering type of risk. Thus, to mitigate this type of risk you need to have training for the employee to increase their security awareness.
- Application vulnerabilities
You should know that attacker can use application vulnerabilities to get access into your company sensitive data. That is why, to mitigate this type of risk, you need to implement sandboxing and application whitelisting. Other ISO 27001 risk treatment might need to be implemented to mitigate the vulnerabilities and increase the application overall security.
- Service denial
This risk can make the company’s online service and website unavailable to use. Thus, your company have to implement a few things to mitigate this type of security risk such as prevention system and intrusion detection.
- System downtime
This security risk can significantly impact the company operation especially when your business operation depends a lot with the system to run. That is why you need to implement system recovery and contingency to mitigate this type of risk.
- External threat
This threat can happen from different source for example, nation-states, criminals, and even your company’s competitor. Thus, you need to implement instruction detection and perimeter security to mitigate this type of risk.
- Internal threat
Since this threat comes from within the company then it can have serious impact on your business. Especially since insider can easily access the company’s system and sensitive information.
To mitigate this type of risk you need to implement access control and privilege principles. That way only authorized personnel can access sensitive data or specific data that only be used for certain roles.
Option That Can Be Use as Risk Treatment
As you can see, there are different types of ISO 27001 risk treatment that you can find. Each of those risk types need to be treated using suitable treatments. Thus, there are a few risk treatments that you can implement to the risks such as:
- Sharing the risk
This option is done by sharing some part on the risk into other area. But remember that this option should only be used together with avoiding and decreasing the risk treatment to make sure that all area of the risks is thoroughly covered.
One example where this treatment is implemented is when company take insurance in order to protect their server from physical damage. This means that the financial risk that the company have to face when the company’s server endure physical damage is transferred to insurance company.
However, the company still responsible for the other risk that the server might have such as data lost. Thus, you also still need to do the other risk treatment to cover the data lost risk.
- Decreasing the risk
This is the option that most commonly used in the plan. The treatment is done by implementing safeguard or control that can be used to minimize and reduce the risk. One example is the implementation of data backup that is used to decrease data loss risk.
- Avoiding the risk
When risk is considered as too dangerous thus it cannot simply be mitigated by other mean, then the last option available is to avoiding the risk itself. One example is the policy to ban users from using the company’s laptop in environment outside the workplace. This policy is used to avoid the risk where the laptop is access by unauthorized personnel.
- Accepting the risk
This treatment is one that least desirable and rarely used since this means that the company decide to accept any responsibility that come from the risk and do not do any measure in order to reduce the risk.
That is why, this treatment should only be used under rare circumstances. Usually the treatment is used when the cost needed to reduce the risk is actually significantly higher compared to the cost that will be spend when the damage did occur.
Steps by Step to Plan a Risk Treatment
Actually, there is no rule that can be used to plan the right ISO 27001 risk treatment for your company. Especially since each company is different thus, you need to create your own plan that fits well with the company according to the standard.
But there are a few steps that you can follow which can be a general guidance for you who want to get ISO 27001 certification such as:
Doing risk assessment
This is the number one step that you need to do when you want to plan the right risk treatment for your company. You need to have the right risk assessment that can help to identify various risk especially those that are associated with the certification.
That way, your company can create a plan that will prioritize the risk and help you to get the certification.
Create mitigation strategy
After all risks are identified through the assessment, then the next thing that you need to do is to create a mitigation strategy. Remember that each strategy used should be create according to specific risk that you want to mitigate. You should also need to consider your company’s risk policy.
Implementing control
After the right strategy has been created then the next thing that you need to do is implementing the right control which can be used to mitigate each risk. Remember that the control should also be tested so you can make sure that they are actually effective to be used in mitigating each risk as stated in ISO 27001 risk treatment.
Monitoring and reviewing
This is the last step that you need to do when planning the risk treatment. Monitoring and reviewing are needed to check how effective each control is on continuous base. That way, you can make sure that those controls you implement remains effective. It will also help the company to implement any adjustment when necessary.
Conclusion
As you can see, there are different security risk that your company have to face. That is why, you need to plan the right risk treatment that can be used to mitigate those risk. It is better to create your own plan as each company is different. Thus, you need to go through the planning process to create ISO 27001 risk treatment that is most suitable for your company.
Description: Learn about the different strategies and techniques used in ISO 27001 risk treatment. Understand the process of identifying, assessing, and mitigating risks to protect your organization’s sensitive information.
Tags: ISO 27001 risk treatment, ISO 27001 risk treatment plan, best ISO 27001 risk treatment, how to make ISO 27001 risk treatment, ISO 27001 risk treatment requirements,