CRISC Domain 1 - A through H Flashcards
Domain 1 - Riks Identification, Assessment and Evaluation
Definition of Risk
Risk reflects the combination of the likelihood of events occuring and the impact those events have on the enterprise
Risk contains
- Opportunities for benefit (upside)
Threats to success (downside)
What are the guiding principles for effective risk management
- Maintain focus on the business mission, goals and objectives
- Integrate IT risk mgt into enterprise risk mgt (ERM)
- Balance the costs and benefits of manaing risk
- Promote fair and open communication
- Est tone at the top and assign personal accountability
- Promote continuous improvement as part of daily activities
Definition of Management
- Mgmt entails the judicious use of means (resources, people, processes, practices, etc) to achieve an identified end
- Often differentiated from governance as the distinction between being “committed” (governance) and “involved” (management)
Explain Management
- Mgmt is responsible for execution within the direction set by the guiding body or unit
- Mgmt is about planning, building, organizing and controlling operational activities to align with the direction set by the governance body
- Mgmt is a means or instrument by which the governenace body achieves a result or objective
Definination of Risk Mgmt
Risk Mgmt is the identification, assessment and prioritization of risk folled by coordinated and economical application of resources to minimize, monitor and control the probablility and/or impact of adverse evtnes or to maximize the realization of opportunities
Explain Responsibilities and Accountability for Risk Mgmt
- Responsibilitiey belongs to those whom must ensure that the activities are completed successfully
- Accountability applies to those individuals, groups, or entities that are ultimately responsible for the subject matter, process or scope
Explain Risk Governance
- Risk governance address the oversight of the business risk mgmt strategy of the enterprise
- Risk governance is the domain of senior mgmt and the shareholders of the enterprise
Who establishes and responsible for the risk governance? Explain
- Senior mgmt and shareholders
- They establish the enterprise’s risk culture and the acceptable levels of risk
- They set up the mgmt framework
- They ensure that the risk mgmt function is operating effectively to identify, manage, monitor, and report on current and potential risk facing the enterprise
Define Governance
- Governance is a system referring to all the means and mechanisms that enable multiple stakeholders in an enterprise to have an organized say in evaluating conditions and options
- Setting direction
- and monitoring compliance, performance and progress against plans to satisfy specific enterprise objectives
Definition of Risk Governance
- Risk governance is a strategic business function that ensures:
- risk mgmt activieis align with the enterprise’s loss capacity
What are the objectives of risk governance
- Est and maintain a common risk view
- Integrate risk management into the enterprise
- Make risk-aware business decisions
To effectively govern enterpirse and IT risk there must be an:
- Understanding and consensus with respoect to the risk appetite and risk tolerance of the enterprise
- Awareness of risk and the need for effective communication about risk throughout the enterprise
- Understanding of the elements of risk culture
What’s the definition of risk appetite
The broad-based amount of risk that a company or entity is willing to accept in pursuit of its mission (or vision)
What’s the definiiion of risk tolerance
The acceptable variation relative to the achievement of an objective (often bbest measured in the same units as those used to measure the related objective)
What are the major factors influencing risk appetitie
- the enterprise’s objectrive capacitiy to obsorb lost, e.g., financial loss, reputation damage
- The (management) culture or predispostion toward risk taking - cautious or agressive
What are the risk appetite bands and definitions
Really unacceptable - indicates really unacceptable risk. The enterprise est that this level of risk is far beyond its normal risk appetite. Any risk in this band may trigger an immediate risk response
- Unacceptable - indicates elevated risk; also above acceptable risk appetite. The enterprise may, as a matter of policy, require mitigation or another edequate response to be defined within certain time boundaries
- Acceptable - indicates a normal, acceptable level of risk, usually with no special action required, except for maintaining the current controls or other responses
- Opportunity - indicates very low risk, in which cost-saving opportunities may be found by decreasing the degree of control or in which opportunities for assuming more risk may arise
Define Risk Tolerance
The acceptable deviation from the level set by the risk appetite and business objectives
What are the guidelines for risk appetite and risk tollerance
- Risk appetite and risk tolerance must connect
- Exceptions to risk tolerance stds must be reviewed and approved
- Risk appetite and tolerance change over time
- Cost of risk mitigation options can affect risk tolerance
Definition of risk culture
The shared values and beliefs that govern the attitudes and behaviors toward risk taking, care and integrity, and determines how openly risk and losses are reported and discussed
Definition of Framework
A framework is a generally accepted, business-process-oriented structure that establishes a common language and enables repeatable business processes
Definition of Standard
A standard establishes mandatory rules, specifications, and metrics used to measure compliance against quality, value, etc
What are standards intended for
- Compliance purposes and to provide assurance to others who interact with a process or outputs of a process (e.g., food and drug qualilty)
- To be implemented in a rigid way and to minimize the number of deviations based on a cost-benfit analysis.
When should deviations from the standard be granted
Should only be granted on an “exception” basis and should follow a defined approval process
Definition of a Practice and Leading Practices
- Practice is a frequent or usual action performed as an application of knowledge
- Leading practice is defined as an action that optimally applies knowledge in a particular area
Practices are issued by? and they may include
- A recognized authority that is appropriate to the subject matter
- Issuing bodies may include professional associations and academic institutions or commercial entities such as software vendors
Why do frameworks, standards, and practices matter
- Provide a systematic view of “things to watch” that could result in harm to customers or an enterprise
- Act as a guide to focus efforts of diverse teams
- Save time and costs, such as training costs, operational costs and performance improvement costs
- Help achieve business objectives more quickly and easily
- Provide creditiability to engatge functional (CFO) leadership
What is risk identification
The process of determining and documenting the risk that an enterprise faces
What is the identification of risk based on
The recognition of threats, vulnerabilities, assets and controls in the enterprise’s operational environment
What is risk assessment
A process used to identify and evaluate risk and its potential effects
What is risk evaluation
The process of comparing the estimated risk against given risk criteria to determine the significance of this risk
Definition of Frequency
A measure of the rate by which events occur over a certain period of time
Definition of Magnitude
A mearus of the potential severity of loss or the potential gain from a realized IT event/scenario
Definition of Risk Aggregation
The process of integrating risk assessments at a corporate level to obtain a complte view of the overall risk for the enterprise
Definition of Risk Analysis
A process by which frequency and magnitude of IT risk scenarios are estimated
Definition of IT Risk
The business risk associated with the use, ownership, operation, involvement, influence and adoption of IT within an enterprise
Effective risk identification, assessment and evaluation involves
- Collecting data on:
- The enterprise’s operating environment (internal/external)
- Risk Events
- Identifiying risk factors (internal/external)
- Analyzing and estimating risk
- Identifying business process resilience level, including the related IT services and supporting assets
What are the three IT Risk Categories
- IT benefit/value enablement risk
- IT program and project delivery risk
- IT operations and service deiivery risk
Define IT benefit/value enablement risk
Associated with (missed) opportunities to use technology to improve efficiency or effectiveness of business proceses or as an enabler for new business initiatives
Define IT program and proejct delivery risk
Associated with the contribution of IT to new or improved business solutions, usually in the form or projects or programs
Define It operations and service delivery risk
Associated with the performance of IT systems and services, which can bring destruction or reduction of vlaue to the enterprise
What are the high-evel phases of risk identification, assessment and evaluation
- Collect data
- Analyze Risk
- Maintain Risk Profile
What are some methods used to collect risk data
- Interviews
- Questionnaires and surveys
- Facilitated workshops
- Observations
- Testing
Definition to Risk Scenario
A description of an event that can lead to a business impact, when, and if, it should occcur
Risk scenario analysis is a technique used to
- Describe risk in a more concrete and tangible manner
- Allow for proper risk assessment and analysis
What are the approaches to Risk Scenario Development? Explain each
- Top-down approach: From the overall business objectives, an analysis of the most relevent and probable IT risk scenario impacting the business objectives is performed
- Bottom-up approach: A list of generic scenarios is used to define a set of more concrete and customized scenarios, which are then applied to the individual enterprise situation
What drives the top-down risk scenario development approach and when is it most beneficial
Business objectives drives the approach; thus, the approach is unique to ea enterprise
-The approach is most beneficial in ensuring that the risk scenarios remain relevant and linked to real business risk
What benefit is it to use generic risk scenarios in Risk Scenario Development
- Helps ensure that tno risk are overlooked
- Provides a comprehensive and complete view of IT risk
What are the steps in the bottom-up risk scenario development
- Using a list of generic risk scenarios, define a set of concrete risk scenarios for the enterprise
- Perform a vallidation against the business objectives of the entity
- Refine the selected scenarios based on this validation, and detail them to a level in line with the criticality of the entity
- Reduce the number of scenarios to a managable set
- Keep all risk factors in a register so that they can be reevaluated in the next iteration and included for detailed analysis if they have become relevant at that time
- Include in the scenarios an unspecified event - how to address an incident not covered by other scenarios
What are the Risk Scenario Components
- Actor
- Threat type
- Event
- Asset (tangible and intangible)
- Timing dimension
When should a Risk Assessment be performed
At least on an annual baiss or when important internal or external changes occur
What is a Risk Register and what does it record?
- Also known as a risk log, it is a listing of all risks identified for the enterprise
- It records:
- All known risk
- Priorities of risk
- Likelihood of risk
- Potential risk impact
- Status of the risk mitigation plans
- Contingency plans
- Onwership of risk
What are the preequisites for developing a manageable set of risk scenarios
- Organizational buy-in or support from enterprise entities and business lines, risk management, IT, finance, compliance and other parties
- Expertise and experience to not overlook relevant scenarios and not be drawn into highly unrealistic or irrelevant scenarios
- A thourough understanding of the environment
- The involvement of all stakeholders
What is Systemic Risk
Something that happens with an important business partner that affects a larrge group of enterprises within an area or industry
What is Contagious Risk
Events that happen at several of the enterprise’s business partners within a very short time frame
What considerations must be required under Obscure or non-Historical Events
- Visibility: Be in a postion that it can be observe anything going wrong
- Recognition: Have the capability to recognize an observed event as something that is going wrong
Definition of Risk Factors
Those features that influence the likelihood and/or business impact of risk scenarios
Name the Threats
- Internal and External
- intentional or accidental
- Skilled or amateur
- Motivated or curious
- Natural or man-made,
- Physical or related to equipment or utility failrures