IT Risk Prompts

Identifying what risks you hold across your IT infrastructure is a key part of any risk management strategy. This is especially true when it comes to your data. If you don’t know what risks you hold, you can’t manage them. This is why it’s important to have a risk management strategy in place.

To help you identify what risks you hold, I’ve put together a list of IT risk prompts. These prompts will help you identify what risks you hold across your IT infrastructure. This isn’t an exhaustive list, and not all of the items on this list will be applicable to all organisations but it should give you a good starting point.

Security

Network security:
- Firewall protection
  - Stateful inspection
  - Application-level gateways
  - Network address translation (NAT)
  - Demilitarized zone (DMZ)
- Intrusion detection and prevention
  - Signature-based detection
  - Anomaly-based detection
  - Behavior-based detection
  - Network-based detection
- Virtual private networks (VPNs)
  - Site-to-site VPNs
  - Remote access VPNs
  - SSL VPNs
  - IPsec VPNs
- Secure sockets layer (SSL) encryption
  - SSL certificates
  - SSL key exchange methods
  - SSL protocol versions
  - SSL termination points
Access controls:
- Password policies
  - Password complexity requirements
  - Password aging requirements
  - Password history requirements
  - Password storage and protection
- Two-factor authentication
  - Something you know (e.g., password)
  - Something you have (e.g., smart card)
  - Something you are (e.g., biometric data)
  - Multi-factor authentication
- Role-based access control (RBAC)
  - User roles and permissions
  - Group roles and permissions
  - Resource-based access control
  - Attribute-based access control
- Account management
  - User provisioning and deprovisioning
  - Account lockout policies
  - Account recovery procedures
  - Account auditing and monitoring
Data encryption:
- Symmetric and asymmetric encryption
  - Key management
  - Key exchange methods
  - Key strength and length
  - Encryption algorithms
- Transport Layer Security (TLS)
  - TLS certificates
  - TLS protocol versions
  - TLS key exchange methods
  - TLS cipher suites
- Secure File Transfer Protocol (SFTP)
  - SFTP authentication methods
  - SFTP encryption methods
  - SFTP data integrity checks
  - SFTP access controls
- Key management
  - Key generation and storage
  - Key rotation policies
  - Key distribution and revocation
  - Key recovery procedures
Malware protection:
- Antivirus software
  - Virus definitions and updates
  - Scanning policies and schedules
  - Quarantine procedures
  - Remediation procedures
- Email filtering
  - Spam filtering
  - Phishing filtering
  - Malware attachment filtering
  - URL filtering
- Web filtering
  - URL filtering
  - Content filtering
  - Application filtering
  - Protocol filtering
- Endpoint protection
  - Host-based firewalls
  - Host-based intrusion detection and prevention
  - Data loss prevention (DLP)
  - Application whitelisting and blacklisting
Physical security:
- Access control systems
  - Card readers and access codes
  - Biometric systems
  - Door locks and alarms
  - Physical barriers (e.g., gates, fences)
- Video surveillance
  - Cameras and recording devices
  - Monitoring and alerts
  - Privacy considerations
  - Storage and retention policies
- Environmental controls
  - Temperature and humidity controls
  - Fire suppression systems
  - Water detection and prevention systems
  - Power management and backup systems
- Backup power supply
  - Uninterruptible power supply (UPS)
  - Backup generators
  - Power distribution and redundancy
  - Power outage response procedures

Availability

Disaster recovery:
- Business impact analysis (BIA)
  - Critical business functions and dependencies
  - Recovery time objectives (RTOs)
  - Recovery point objectives (RPOs)
  - Maximum allowable downtime (MAD)
- Disaster recovery planning
  - Backup and recovery procedures
  - Alternate site locations
  - Communication and notification procedures
  - Testing and maintenance procedures
- High availability
  - Redundancy and fault tolerance
  - Load balancing and failover
  - Clustered systems and virtualization
  - Geographically distributed systems
Capacity planning:
- Resource utilization monitoring
  - CPU usage
  - Memory usage
  - Storage usage
  - Network usage
- Performance tuning
  - System optimization
  - Database tuning
  - Application tuning
  - Network optimization
- Scalability planning
  - Vertical scaling
  - Horizontal scaling
  - Elastic scaling
  - Capacity forecasting and planning
- Workload management
  - Load testing and simulation
  - Capacity allocation and prioritization
  - Resource allocation and scheduling
  - Workload balancing and optimization
Fault tolerance:
- Redundancy
  - Hardware redundancy
  - Software redundancy
  - Network redundancy
  - Data redundancy
- Error detection and correction
  - Parity checking
  - Error-correcting code (ECC)
  - Checksums and hashes
  - Redundant array of independent disks (RAID)
- Failover and failback
  - Automatic failover
  - Manual failover
  - Failback procedures
  - Clustered systems and virtualization
- Backup and recovery
  - Backup procedures
  - Recovery procedures
  - Backup types and schedules
  - Off-site storage and replication
Monitoring and alerting:
- System monitoring
  - Network monitoring
  - Application monitoring
  - Performance monitoring
  - Security monitoring
- Log management
  - Log collection and aggregation
  - Log storage and retention
  - Log analysis and correlation
  - Log archiving and backup
- Alerting and notification
  - Threshold-based alerts
  - Event-based alerts
  - Escalation procedures
  - Notification methods and channels
- Dashboard and reporting
  - Real-time dashboards
  - Historical reports
  - Executive summaries
  - Trend analysis and forecasting

Scalability

Horizontal scalability:
- Load balancing
  - Round-robin
  - Weighted round-robin
  - Least connections
  - IP hash
- Auto scaling
  - Scaling policies
  - Auto scaling groups
  - Cloud provider services
  - Elastic scaling
Vertical scalability:
- Capacity planning
  - Resource utilization monitoring
  - Performance tuning
  - Capacity forecasting and planning
  - Workload management
- Hardware upgrades
  - CPU upgrades
  - Memory upgrades
  - Storage upgrades
  - Network upgrades
Elastic scalability:
- Cloud services
  - Infrastructure as a service (IaaS)
  - Platform as a service (PaaS)
  - Software as a service (SaaS)
  - Function as a service (FaaS)
- Containerization
  - Docker
  - Kubernetes
  - Microservices
  - Service meshes
Database scalability:
- Vertical scaling
  - Database tuning
  - Replication and sharding
  - Partitioning and indexing
  - Query optimization
- Horizontal scaling
  - Database clustering
  - Replication and sharding
  - Distributed databases
  - Consistency and availability
Network scalability:
- Network topology
  - Switching and routing
  - Load balancing and traffic management
  - Virtual private networks (VPNs)
  - Content delivery networks (CDNs)
- Protocol optimization
  - TCP/IP optimization
  - HTTP and HTTPS optimization
  - Content optimization
  - Protocol-level security
- Network virtualization
  - Virtual LANs (VLANs)
  - Software-defined networking (SDN)
  - Network function virtualization (NFV)
  - Network overlays

Integration

Data integration:
- Data format and structure
  - Data mapping and transformation
  - Data validation and cleansing
  - Data modeling and normalization
- Data transfer and synchronization
  - File-based transfer
  - Message-based transfer
  - API-based transfer
  - Database replication and synchronization
- Data governance and security
  - Data ownership and stewardship
  - Data privacy and compliance
  - Data encryption and decryption
  - Data access control and auditing
Application integration:
- Application interfaces
  - Web services (SOAP and REST)
  - Messaging systems (JMS and AMQP)
  - Event-driven architecture (EDA)
  - Enterprise service bus (ESB)
- Application data flow
  - Request and response patterns
  - Data correlation and aggregation
  - Data caching and throttling
  - Asynchronous processing and queuing
- Application security and compliance
  - Authentication and authorization
  - Access control and auditing
  - Compliance with standards (HIPAA, PCI DSS, etc.)
  - Error handling and reporting
Infrastructure integration:
- Systems integration
  - Middleware integration
  - API integration
  - System adapters and connectors
  - Legacy systems integration
- Cloud integration
  - Cloud-to-cloud integration
  - Cloud-to-on-premise integration
  - Cloud federation and orchestration
  - Hybrid cloud integration
- Integration testing and validation
  - Functional testing
  - Regression testing
  - Performance testing
  - Security testing
Partner and third-party integration:
- Vendor interfaces and APIs
  - Onboarding and integration
  - Data exchange and synchronization
  - Service-level agreements (SLAs)
  - Vendor management and governance
- Third-party integrations
  - Integrations with social media platforms
  - Integrations with payment gateways
  - Integrations with logistics providers
  - Integrations with other third-party services
- Security and compliance
  - Data privacy and protection
  - Compliance with regulations (GDPR, CCPA, etc.)
  - Contract management and auditing
  - Risk assessment and mitigation

Data Management

Data privacy:
- Data classification
  - Confidentiality levels
  - Regulatory requirements
  - Data ownership and stewardship
  - Data retention and disposal
- Data protection
  - Access controls
  - Encryption
  - Anonymization and pseudonymization
  - Data masking and obfuscation
- Data breach response
  - Incident response plan
  - Forensic investigation
  - Notification procedures
  - Remediation and mitigation
Data quality:
- Data profiling
  - Data completeness
  - Data accuracy
  - Data consistency
  - Data validity
- Data cleansing
  - Data standardization
  - Data matching and merging
  - Data parsing and transformation
  - Data enrichment and augmentation
- Data governance
  - Data ownership and stewardship
  - Data policies and procedures
  - Data lineage and audit trails
  - Data quality monitoring and reporting
Data storage:
- Storage architecture
  - Block storage
  - File storage
  - Object storage
  - Distributed storage
- Storage performance
  - IOPS and throughput
  - Latency and access time
  - Storage tiering and caching
  - Storage optimization techniques
- Data backup and recovery
  - Backup types and schedules
  - Data recovery objectives
  - Recovery time objectives
  - Disaster recovery planning
Data integration:
- Data modeling
  - Entity-relationship modeling
  - Dimensional modeling
  - Data flow diagrams
  - UML modeling
- Data integration techniques
  - ETL (extract, transform, load)
  - ELT (extract, load, transform)
  - Data virtualization
  - Change data capture (CDC)
- Data synchronization
  - Real-time synchronization
  - Batch synchronization
  - Conflict resolution
  - Data replication and distribution
Compliance:
- Regulatory compliance
  - GDPR
  - HIPAA
  - SOX
  - PCI DSS
- Industry standards
  - ISO 27001
  - NIST
  - CIS Controls
  - OWASP
- Internal policies
  - Acceptable use policies
  - Data retention policies
  - Information security policies
  - Employee training and awareness

Compliance

Regulatory compliance:
- Industry-specific regulations
  - HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act)
  - GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation)
  - PCI DSS (Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard)
  - SOX (Sarbanes-Oxley Act)
- Country-specific regulations
  - Data localization laws
  - Export control laws
  - Cybersecurity laws
  - Privacy laws
- Compliance management
  - Compliance assessment and gap analysis
  - Compliance monitoring and reporting
  - Compliance training and awareness
  - Compliance risk management
Contractual compliance:
- Customer contracts
  - Service level agreements (SLAs)
  - Data protection agreements (DPAs)
  - Business associate agreements (BAAs)
  - Non-disclosure agreements (NDAs)
- Vendor contracts
  - Service level agreements (SLAs)
  - Data protection agreements (DPAs)
  - Business associate agreements (BAAs)
  - Non-disclosure agreements (NDAs)
- Compliance management
  - Contract review and negotiation
  - Contract monitoring and reporting
  - Compliance risk management
Security compliance:
- Standards and frameworks
  - ISO/IEC 27001:2013
  - NIST Cybersecurity Framework
  - CIS Controls
  - OWASP Top 10
- Security controls and practices
  - Access control and authentication
  - Vulnerability management
  - Incident management and response
  - Security awareness and training
- Compliance management
  - Compliance assessment and gap analysis
  - Compliance monitoring and reporting
  - Compliance training and awareness
  - Compliance risk management

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