ELI5: What is Risk Identification?
Before you can fix a problem, you have to find it. Risk identification is like walking through your house with a checklist — looking for unlocked doors, broken windows, and tripping hazards — so you know what needs attention.
Definition
Risk identification is the first phase of the risk management process, in which an organization systematically discovers and documents potential risks to its information assets and operations. It involves building an asset inventory (knowing what you have), performing threat modeling (identifying potential threats to those assets), conducting vulnerability scanning (identifying exploitable weaknesses), and reviewing historical incident data and threat intelligence. Without comprehensive risk identification, subsequent risk assessment and treatment activities will miss significant exposures.
Key Details
- Asset inventory: you cannot protect what you do not know you have; asset discovery is the starting point
- Threat modeling: STRIDE, attack trees, and other frameworks help systematically identify threat actors and attack scenarios
- Vulnerability scanning: automated tools (Nessus, Qualys, OpenVAS) identify known weaknesses in systems and applications
- Threat intelligence: external feeds provide information about emerging threats relevant to the organization’s industry and technology stack
- Risk identification is ongoing — new assets, threats, and vulnerabilities emerge continuously
Connections
- Parent: risk-management — risk identification is the foundation of the risk management lifecycle
- See also: vulnerability-assessment
- See also: threat-assessment