Information Risk Management and Gap Analysis

Risk. The possibility of suffering harm or loss. The potential for realizing the unwanted negative consequences of an event.

Translating business requirements into IT resources is always a challenge. It is a greater challenge when security is involved. IT staff need to fully understand their business’ mission-critical requirements. Then, they need to find the sets of ways to allow the enterprise to conduct its business while ensuring that the business’ information is available, confidential, and secure. Misunderstandings can be costly. Critical information may be inadequately secured, and non-essential information may even be over-secured.

Polar Cove’s risk management and gap analysis approach uses quantitative and qualitative tools to enumerate our clients’ security risk exposures. Consultants lay the foundation by gaining agreement with clients about specific risks in direct relation to their missions and their essential IT assets. After these risks are identified, Polar Cove works in cooperation with management to ensure that operational and business units work together to understand and address the information security needs of the enterprise. As a result, clients can close the gaps between business requirements and the IT resources that protect them. Risks are managed, not merely experienced.

Building Asset-Based Threat Profiles. Polar Cove examines key enterprise-wide information assets, the specific threats to those assets, the resulting security requirements, existing security practices, and potential vulnerabilities.

Identify Infrastructure Vulnerabilities. Evaluating the key operational components of each client’s information infrastructure uncovers possible technology flaws that can be exploited.

Developing a Security Policy, Strategy, and Plan. Based on the specific information developed in the steps above, Polar Cove works with management to establish a tailored, effective protection strategy for each client. Security policies developed for each are based on prioritized risk assessments, the available or necessary assets, and the organizational requirements for mitigating risk.

Polar Cove risk assessment and risk management consultation enables clients to make information management decisions and develop effective security policies, based on management’s decisions about specific business information and its uses. The result is a program tailored to ensure critical controls and protection for each enterprise.