Every organization has a mission. In this digital era, as organizations use automated information technology (IT) systems to process their information for better support of their missions, risk management plays a critical role in protecting an organization’s information assets, and therefore its mission, from IT-related risk.
An effective risk management process is an important component of a successful IT security program. The principal goal of an organization’s risk management process should be to protect the organization and its ability to perform their mission, not just its IT assets. Therefore, the risk management process should not be treated primarily as a technical function carried out by the IT experts who operate and manage the IT system, but as an essential management function of the organization. Risk is the net negative impact of the exercise of a vulnerability, considering both the probability and the impact of occurrence. Risk management is the process of identifying risk, assessing risk, and taking steps to reduce risk to an acceptable level.
The objective of performing risk management is to enable the organization to accomplish its mission(s) by better securing the IT systems that store, process, or transmit organizational information; by enabling management to make well-informed risk management decisions to justify the expenditures that are part of an IT budget; and by assisting management in authorizing (or accrediting) the IT systems on the basis of the supporting documentation resulting from the performance of risk management.