Risk identification and management is a vital component for the success of any organization as it helps in minimizing risks and ensuring that proper strategies are initiated to minimize the extent of any likely threats. The human resource (HR) department is one of the most crucial segments in a company due to the nature of information handled which ranges from the employee database to the payroll data. Leaders in various organizations need to continually facilitate the vulnerability assessment of their HR systems to establish any gaps that need to be sealed to enhance data security and make sure that internal information is not retrieved by hackers for malicious use. The rationale behind risk assessment is to ensure that any possible perils are mitigated and continuous evaluation enabled so that the security of employee information and other crucial facts about the organization is assured (Luko, 2014). For effective assessment, the IT systems linked with the HR database have to be incorporated into the software development life cycle (SDLC) for monitoring throughout the different phases that range from the initiation to the disposal stages.
There are a number of techniques that can be used to assess any potential threats in an HR system for effective mitigation which include the risk score matrix. According to Stoneburner, Goguen, & Feringa (2002), a risk involves a probability of the occurrence of a certain danger which may be vulnerable to a system, leading to an undesirable impact. The risk assessment of the HR systems in an organization wound integrates various steps. First, it would be necessary to perform a system characterization process to understand the HR database and the nature of information stored in it.
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Second, the people in charge of an organization’s IT may seek to identify a possible threat to the HR database such as the financial data manipulation (Jacobs, 2013). The third step involves a vulnerability assessment to help determine the possible avenues that may be exploited by hackers while the fourth step is the control analysis which explores the available mechanisms put in place to prevent the threat from happening. The next step is usually the likelihood determination which is followed by impact analysis to identify how sensitive the hazard established may affect the entire organization. This is followed by the threat determination, control recommendation, and results documentation which constitutes the risk assessment report (Stoneburner, Goguen, & Feringa, 2002). Financial data manipulation through the HR department may lead to a company to loss-making, thus, a proper assessment is required to help establish suitable mitigation strategies.
Table 1-0 shows a risk assessment report which can be used by an organization to determine the vulnerability of various threats in the HR department such as the manipulation of financial data. The ratings on the grade row show the level of risk with low being the minimum and extreme the maximum. In the event of vulnerability with the highest likelihood, the company would make losses and risk bankruptcy. Therefore, any threat that exposes the financial aspect of the HR should be established early enough and proper mitigation strategies to ensure that the database system is secure from both external and internal unauthorized access. The development of the risk score in the business world is important and should be intensified (Aven, 2016). Overall, risk assessment is necessary as it establishes the vulnerability of an organization’s systems to ensure that remedial measures are initiated.
