February 19, 2019

Have You Completed Your Internal Security Risk Assessment Yet?

Are you aware of the common security risks at work? There are many workplace security risks posing threats to data security that you may not consider while you work. That's why it's important to conduct a formal site security assessment.

An information security risk assessment will help you determine if your workplace is at risk for a security breach. Additionally, the site security assessment will help you identify and implement certain security risks at work to help eliminate the potential of a data breach from occurring. Although certain privacy laws and regulations often require an assessment to occur – it’s good to be proactive and take the initiative.

To help you get started, here are some quick and easy steps to help your workplace conduct an internal risk assessment today and to help prevent a security breach in the workplace.

• First, appoint someone in your organization to take this initiative on every year. This person doesn’t necessarily have to be from the IT or data team – this could be an initiative from the legal, finance or HR team.
• Second, once that individual has been chosen, they must take the time to complete a workplace information security audit and operations review. This review should analyse the types of confidential information that the organization collects, and reviews how the information is handled and disposed. The information analyzed can include CV’s, client documents, meeting notes, contracts and more.
• Third, improvements and corrections must take place. Once a detailed audit has been conducted, take the time to analyse and suggest ways to improve information security best practices within the organization. For example, does your organization have a Shred-it All policy? How does your organization train employees on privacy protocols and best practices to reduce employee error?
• The fourth step is prevention and enforcement. Based on the assessment, this data should be used to help your organization make better-informed decisions on privacy and best practices. Organizations should hire or appoint a Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) to take the responsibility for data protection and privacy. A Clean Desk Policy should also be implemented and a comprehensive crisis plan should be created and updated regularly in the chance that a data breach does occur.

Breaking down the process into concrete steps can make this task less daunting and help your organization down the path to becoming more secure.

To take the next step in securing your workplace, contact us to get a free security risk assessment conducted by one of our trained security risk assessment consultants.