Thursday, February 18, 2010

Risk Assessment Necessary Evil

This week I have been learning about doing risk assessment in order to inform how much companies would actually lose if the company lost equipment or data. I learned it is tough in coming up with all that could go wrong and with what is of value within a company that I need to take into account.

The hardest part of the "assessment" is assigning a numerical value. You have to think of the employee worth, and the amount of time that goes into the assessment. You also have to think of the time that it takes to replace the data and information that may be compromised if a system fails.

Will you be able to cover quickly? Remember that the longer your system and network may be down the longer you will be not satisfying customers' needs. You have to be prepared. Make the necessary backups, images, have the necessary disks. Do you have extra computer parts in case your system blows up? Are the backup and recovery procedures written down and are the staff prepared on how to implement those procedures. These are the questions to ask.

Systems should be operational within an hour. If it is not then something is wrong with your recovery procedure. The quicker you can get back to work the better. I know there are some extreme instances where that will not be possible, but that also needs to be taken into account.

As always leave me a comment about anything I say, and remember stay secure out there.

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