NIST Risk Assessment: Identifying and Managing Security Risks

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is considered the gold standard for data security among US federal agencies. The framework enables you to strengthen your security posture by implementing strong security measures to safeguard sensitive data. 

Companies aren’t mandated to become NIST-certified. However, companies that fall under the federal information systems must be NIST compliant, and NIST risk assessment is a crucial component of the process. Risk assessment helps organizations identify potential risks, evaluate severity, and mitigate their impact on business processes. Conducting an NIST risk assessment has a number of nuances. 

Luckily, there are compliance solutions that can help you with these. In this article, we take a detailed look at NIST risk assessment, its methodologies, benefits, and cost. Let’s get started. 

What is NIST SP 800-30?

The NIST SP 800-30 is a special publication offering clear guidelines for organizations to conduct and maintain risk assessments on their systems. The framework utilizes a standard language format that follows a step-by-step approach to identifying risks throughout the system development life cycle. 

This enables efficient risk reporting in the entire risk management hierarchy, offering the risk management team a clear understanding of what it takes to bolster the defense of an organization’s security systems against inside and outside threats.

NIST risk assessment methodology

As mentioned in the risk management hierarchy, a simplified three-tier approach makes it easier to understand the NIST risk assessment process.

Tier 1: This level looks at the whole organization, including business models, organizational design and long-term goals.

Tier 2: This tier investigates specific areas like sales and marketing for companies hence provides contextual information that can be very useful at times.

Tier 3: This level focuses on technical aspects such as information systems, applications, and data flows.

The difficulty is in ensuring that these tiers align with each other because understanding the contextually relevant risks at every level is an important prerequisite to performing effective risk analysis. 

As a bonus, we have collated the NIST 800 53 Controls List to help you with the risk assessment. Take a look:

NIST risk assessment process

The NIST risk assessment process offers a structured approach to identifying, managing, and mitigating risks in your organization’s information systems. A simplified version of the process is given below:

Step 1: Prepare for the assessment

Initiating the risk assessment process starts with thorough preparation. The aim here is to establish a context for the risk assessment. Organizations use this risk management strategy to gather insights to prepare for the risk assessment. Preparing for a risk assessment includes the following tasks:

• Identify the purpose of the assessment by understanding the information it aims to generate and the decisions it helps make. The purpose depends on whether it is an initial assessment or a follow-up triggered by risk response or an anomaly detected during risk monitoring.
  
• Determine the scope of the assessment by considering organizational relevance, supported time frames, and architectural/technology factors. Establishing the scope assists organizations in determining which tiers are covered, the areas of the organization impacted, and the nature of that impact.
  
• Identify the assumptions and constraints associated with the assessment. This improves clarity in risk assessment, enhances transparency in the chosen risk model, encourages reproducibility, and fosters collaboration among organizations.
  
• Identify the sources of threat, vulnerability, and impact information to be used in the risk assessment. This descriptive information helps organizations determine the relevance of threat and vulnerability information.
  
• Identify the risk model and relevant metrics. Organizations can define one or more risk models for the risk assessment exercise. To make assessment results more reciprocal, the risk models of each organization can include or be translated into the risk factors defined in the appendices, such as threat, vulnerability, impact, likelihood, and predisposing condition.

Experience The Sprinto Advantage: Sprinto is a smart compliance automation platform that simplifies your compliance work by incorporating an approved NIST program, evaluating security controls, and providing an integrated approach to managing risks. Its seamless approach to risk management enhances efficiency by automating evidence collection, maintaining logs, and generating risk assessment reports for internal NIST audits.

Source: NIST Special Publication

Step 2: Conducting Risk Assessment 

The step aims to identify information security risks that can be prioritized by risk level and used to make informed risk response decisions. Some of the specific tasks involved when conducting risk assessments include the following:

Identify threat sources: This involves identifying and assessing characteristics about sources of threats, their capabilities as well as potential effects for non-adversarial threats.

Identify threat events: Identify possible threat events, their relevance and the associated threat sources. Threat events are identified by initiating threat sources (TTP) for adversarial events in case of attacks. Organizations should define these events, such as Tier 1 for organizational-level impacts, Tier 2 for crossing system boundaries, and Tier 3 for information systems.

Identify vulnerabilities and predisposing conditions: These are vulnerabilities and conditions that have a high likelihood of causing negative outcomes. Vulnerability assessments help to understand how susceptible organizations, business processes, and information systems are to the identified threat sources.

Determine likelihood: Evaluate the probability of threat events taking into account (i) the attributes of the threat sources initiating the events, (ii) the identified vulnerabilities, and (iii) the organizational susceptibility, considering the safeguards/countermeasures planned or implemented to deter such events.

Impact analysis: Assess the potential impact of identified threat events, taking into consideration (i) the attributes of the threat sources initiating the events, (ii) the identified vulnerabilities/predisposing conditions, and (iii) the susceptibility, reflecting the safeguards/countermeasures planned or implemented to mitigate such events. 

Risk determination: Evaluate the organizational risk posed by identified threat events by considering (i) the potential impact resulting from the events and (ii) the likelihood of the events occurring. Assessing the risk levels of identified threats shows how vulnerable organizations are. Prioritizing risk profiles based on determined levels helps focus attention on high-risk events. Further prioritization can be applied based on the nature of risk.

Step 3: Communicate and share risk assessment results.

The third phase in the risk assessment process involves conveying the results and disseminating information related to risk. The aim is to provide decision-makers with pertinent risk-related information essential for informed and effective risk decision-making. This phase encompasses the following specific tasks:

• Communicate the outcomes of risk assessment

• Share the information from the risk assessment to support other risk management activities.

Step 4: Maintaining the risk assessment

This step is meant to enable the organization to keep pace with specific knowledge about risks it incurs. The results of any risk assessments are inputs into decisions about risk management and risk responses. 

Organizations maintain their risk assessments so as to reflect the ongoing monitoring of risks, thus allowing for a continuous appraisal of decisions concerning risk management, such as acquisition or authorization of information systems. Risk monitoring includes conducting tasks like assessing how effective the responses were in coping with risks, recognizing the impact on organizational systems, and confirming compliance. Some specific tasks associated with maintaining a risk assessment are:

• Monitor identified risk factors found during a risk assessment and changes that occurred over time.
• When environmental risks change, update complete documentation for the entire risk assessment.

Experience the Sprinto advantage: Sprinto’s compliance automation solution helps you establish a robust risk assessment process overseeing security controls and enables you to expedite your audit readiness to comply with relevant security frameworks.

Benefits of NIST risk assessment

NIST risk assessment is a lighthouse for companies sailing through the intricacies of cybersecurity. This inclusive risk management framework provides firms looking to enhance their security posture with several key advantages, ranging from promoting continuous improvement to strengthening compliance readiness. Below are some of them:

Comprehensive approach: A systematic approach is ensured by this framework, which encompasses all major aspects of risk assessment, such as system characterization and mitigation. Therefore, it encourages ongoing monitoring, reassessment, and modification of the mitigation strategies, thus bringing about a culture of continuous improvement that helps in early identification and counteraction against new threats.

Adaptability: The NIST risk assessment framework possesses a high degree of adaptability, making it suitable for organizations operating in different industries and sizes. Its intuitive features, implementation tiers, and risk profiles serve as an easily understandable blueprint that facilitates rapid adoption and continuous guidance.

Stakeholder focus: The NIST Framework is designed for public understanding, accommodating both technical and business stakeholders. Aligned with its organizational objectives, its risk management approach aids in clear communication and decision-making among technicians and executives. This results in better communication and decision-making and simplifies security budget allocation across the organization.

Enhanced compliance: The NIST Framework creates a strong foundation for cybersecurity practice within firms. By adopting this framework, however, organizations can be better situated to deal with future compliance requirements as they arise, thus allowing them greater ease of long-term compliance. In this light, new standards like NYDFS 23 and NYCR 500 recently cited the NIST Framework, allowing an easy transition to that framework because these organizations already use CSF.

How much does NIST risk assessment cost?

The NIST certification cost depends on factors such as the size, the organization’s complexity, and the assessment’s scope. On average, companies spend between $5,000 and $20,000 for the audit and assessment process specific to the different NIST frameworks.

However, if the initial assessment reveals issues that need immediate remediation, the NIST certification cost can increase from $35,000 to $115,000. Again, the price here depends on the size of the company and the extent of issues.

Read also: 7 Best NIST Compliance Software

Final thoughts

Conducting a NIST risk assessment is important for enhancing your company’s resilience against cyber-attacks. NIST’s approach to continual improvement ensures that managing risks becomes part of an organization’s culture, providing a strong defense against ever-changing threats.

While there are many steps involved in NIST certification, Sprinto’s compliance automation platform seamlessly collaborates with auditors and stakeholders and gets you NITS-ready at ease. The platform trains employees on NIST compliance requirements and conducts tests and documents evidence, enabling faster, more accurate audits. In short, the platform accelerates NIST certification compliance, aiding security control assessment and aligning with diverse standards and regulations. 

Schedule a demo today to expedite your organization’s NIST compliance journey.

FAQs

What is the purpose of the NIST Risk Management Framework?

The NIST Risk Management Framework (RMF) offers a flexible, repeatable, and measurable 7-step process for organizations to manage information security and privacy risks. It is designed to meet the requirements of the Federal Information Security Modernization Act (FISMA) and is supported by a suite of NIST standards and guidelines.

Who requires NIST certification?

NIST is required by organizations that are involved with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), General Services Administration (GSA), Department of Defense (DoD), or other federal or state agencies’ supply chains.

What is the NIST risk response?

The NIST Risk Management Framework involves identifying, evaluating, deciding, and implementing effective actions to manage risk in organizational operations and assets. These actions include accepting, mitigating, sharing, or transferring risk, ensuring the security of information systems, and safeguarding operations, assets, individuals, other organizations, and the nation.