Threats and Threat Assessments

A threat assessment helps an organization identify and categorize threats. It attempts to predict the threats against an organization’s assets, along with the likelihood the threat will occur. Threat assessments also attempt to identify the potential impact from these threats. Once the organization identifies and prioritizes threats, it identifies security controls to protect against the most serious threats.

Organizations have limited resources, so it’s not possible to protect against all threats. However, threat assessments improve the security posture of any system or application by ensuring that the resources aren’t squandered on low-priority threats. Some common types of threat assessments are:

Environmental. An environmental threat assessment evaluates the likelihood of an environmental threat occurring. For example, I live in Virginia Beach, Virginia, and while we’re concerned about the natural threat of hurricanes during the hurricane season, we aren’t very concerned about earthquakes. My sister is a business continuity expert and she lives near San Francisco and works in Silicon Valley. She helps companies prepare for risks associated with earthquakes there, but she spends very little time or energy considering the risk of a hurricane hitting San Francisco.

More Info: comptia a+ requirements