Risk Management 
Risk Management is a business practice that protects physical, logical and human resources. Risk management is very often applied in banking and finance sector, but all industries need a "risk managment" function. Risks that need to be managed include losses from natural causes such as disasters or fires, accidents, lawsuits, etc.
Risk is an issue which could impact your ability to meet your objectives
What is "Risk"?
- verb: expose to a chance of loss or damage
- noun: a source of danger
- noun: a venture undertaken without regard to possible loss or injury
- verb: take a risk in the hope of a favorable outcome
Terms
- Acceptable risk - A term used to describe the minimum acceptable risk that an organization is willing to take.
- Countermeasure or safeguards - Controls, processes, procedures, or security systems that help to mitigate potential risk.
- Exposure - When an asset is vulnerable to damage or losses from a threat.
- Exposure factor - A value calculated by determining the percentage of loss to a specific asset because of a specific threat.
- Residual risk - The risk that remains after security controls and security countermeasures have been implemented.
- Risk management - The process of reducing risk to assets by identifying and eliminating threats through the deployment of security controls and security countermeasures.
- Risk analysis - The process of identifying the severity of potential risks, identifying vulnerabilities, and assigning a priority to each.This may be done in preparation for the implementation of security countermeasures designed to mitigate high-priority risks.
Criticality Matrix
| |
Most Critical
Highest level of sensitivity |
Critical
Moderate level of sensitivity |
Least Critical
Very low, but still requiring some protection |
| Legal Requirements |
Protection of data is required by law (e.g., HIPAA and FERPA data elements and other personal identifying information protected by law) |
The institution has a contractual obligation to protect the data (e.g., bibliographic citation data, bulk licensed software) |
|
| Reputation Risk |
High |
Medium |
Low |
| Other Institutional Risks |
Information that provides access to resources, physical or virtual |
Smaller subsets of Most Critical data from a school, large part of a school, or department |
|
| Data Examples |
- Medical
- Student
- Prospective student
- Personnel
- Donor or prospect
- Financial
- Contracts
- Physical plant detail
- Credit card numbers
- Certain management information
|
- Information resources with access to Most Critical data
- Research detail or results that are not Most Critical
- Library transactions (e.g., catalog, circulation, acquisitions)
- Financial transactions that do not include Most Critical data (e.g., telephone billing)
- Very small subsets of Most Critical data
|
- Campus maps
- Personal directory data (e.g., contact information)
- E-mail
- Institutionally published public data
|
The Risk Matrix
To determine the degree of urgency attached to a given situation, refer to this table.
The Risk Matrix |
Impact |
| |
|
High |
Medium |
Low |
| Probability |
High |
A |
B |
C |
| Medium |
A |
B |
C |
| Low |
B |
C |
C |
Risk Assessment
The UC Office of Information Security will assist with Risk Assessment upon request. |
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