Summary
The ISO 21001 EOMS standard requires top management to determine and address the risks affecting their students. The post presents a risk assessment guide to help organizations reach this goal and pass the ISO 21001 audit.
Most top ISO 21001 audit experts will agree that risk assessment is one of the most effective means to manage potential threats in an organization.
That’s why ISO 21001 emphasizes it several times across the standard. For instance, in clause 5.1.2, the ISO 21001 educational organization management system standard states that top management is responsible for identifying and addressing the risks affecting their learners and operations.
Needless to say, you shall carry out a thorough risk assessment to identify the risks and meet this clause.
But do you know how to perform a risk assessment in an educational organization? It can be a complex process if you have never done it before.
So, continue reading to find a detailed risk assessment guide for an accurate analysis!
Step 1: Establish The Context
Before considering a risk assessment, ensure you have met the requirements of clause 4 of ISO 21001. It means you should comprehend the context of your organization, the scope of the EOMS, and your objectives regarding the management system and operations. Additionally, you shall identify your relevant stakeholders and consider their needs and expectations. Ensure you have records on all these requirements to pass the ISO 21001 audit.
Step 2: Risk Identification
You can utilize the SWOT matrix to analyze the environment of your organization and establish the internal and external threats.
After determining the potential threats, identify their causes, consequences, and opportunities.
Record the risks using a risk register and review them periodically.
Step 3: Risk Analysis
Assess each risk and allocate them with individual risk ratings.
Start the process by identifying your existing controls and determining the likelihood of the risk occurring. Ask yourself whether the existing controls can mitigate the risk. ISO 21001 audit experts suggest analyzing the effectiveness of the existing controls to determine the subsequent actions.
After assessing the controls, consider the consequences each risk can have on your organization’s operations, processes, and learners. The consequences can be insignificant, minor, moderate, major, or severe.
Lastly, check how likely it is that the threat will occur. You can categorize it under the following labels
• Almost certain
• Likely
• Possible
• Unlikely
• Rare
Use the risk rating matrix to rate the identified risks.
Step 4: Evaluation
It is where ISO 21001 audit consultants suggest performing a thorough evaluation of each risk.
You shall determine whether the level of risk is acceptable or if you need to mitigate it. If you feel the need to address the risk, how will you do it?
Consider creating a risk acceptability chart with extreme, high, medium, and low acceptability categories.
Review the risks periodically to update the risk acceptance rating accordingly.
Step 5: Risk Treatment
Risk treatment refers to how you respond to a risk. There are several ways to treat risk, such as sharing, terminating, accepting, and reducing.
The way you should treat a risk depends on its nature and the outcome of the evaluation process.
The process of risk treatment involves assessing the risk, determining its acceptable level, implementing a treatment option, checking the effectiveness of the treatment, and updating the status of the risk.
Step 6: Communication And Consultation
Throughout the risk management process, ISO 21001 audit experts recommend consulting with your relevant stakeholders and keeping them updated.
Step 7: Monitoring And Review
Schedule monitoring and review plans for the risks and keep the risk register updated.
Step 8: Recording And Reporting
Find an organized way to record and report the risks and the outcome of the assessment. Share them with relevant stakeholders and ensure they comply with ISO 21001 requirements.
Final Words
ISO 21001 audit experts suggest using an appropriate risk register to record all the identified risks and update their status. If a risk has a high chance of occurring, take measures to control it as soon as possible. Record your risk treatment plans to serve as evidence.
Author Bio
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An ISO 27001 risk assessment is the process of identifying, analyzing, and evaluating weaknesses in an organization’s information security processes.
It is an international standard that defines the information security best practices for maintaining and executing an Information Security Management System (ISMS).ISO 27001 risk assessment is vital to ISMS as it helps organizations:Identify how likely it is that their data could be compromisedUnderstand particular events in which organizational data could be lost or stolenEvaluate the destruction each event could causeIn order to get your ISO 27001 risk assessment right, there are several factors that you need to consider.
In this post, we will discuss what you can do to get started on the right foot.Let’s jump right into it.#1 Develop a FrameworkTo start with, you need to establish a framework or conditions for performing risk management, particularly whenever there is a significant change in the security protocols.
The framework includes everything from risk identification to assigning risk ownership, availability and integrity of data, the vulnerability of information, likelihood of damage occurring, and the method of evaluating the estimated damage caused by each scenario.
In short, under ISO 27001 risk assessment, the methodology should address issues such as:Risk scaleProcess: asset or scenario-based risk assessmentRisk appetiteOrganization’s core security requirements#2 Determine RisksNext in ISO 27001 risk assessment is identifying risks that can impact the availability, integrity, and confidentiality of data.
Experts suggest following an asset-based approach.
