Strategizing Risk Avoidance For Smoother Business Operations

Data breaches have become as abundant as cat videos – it’s a fact. 

As businesses increasingly rely on digital infrastructure, the stakes have never been higher. One wrong move, one overlooked vulnerability, and your organization could be making headlines for all the wrong reasons.

But here’s the thing: effective cybersecurity isn’t about fancy jargon or Hollywood-style hacking scenarios. It’s about smart, proactive strategies that keep your business off the radar of potential attackers. This is where risk avoidance comes into play.

In this article, we’ll cut through the noise and explore practical, effective approaches to risk avoidance in cybersecurity. 

TL;DR Risk avoidance in cybersecurity focuses on completely eliminating high-impact risks by avoiding activities that could expose an organization to security threats. The process involves assessing high-impact risks, quantifying them, evaluating mitigation alternatives, implementing controls, and continuously monitoring to stay ahead. By adopting the right security controls and advanced platforms, businesses can avoid risks and ensure secure operations without relying solely on reactive strategies.

What do you mean by Risk Avoidance?

Risk avoidance is eliminating events, incidents, or extreme risks that expose your organization to financial loss, hazards, non-compliance, or reputational damage. It implements proactive measures to prevent such risks from materializing in the first place. 

The risk avoidance process forms a part of an organization’s comprehensive risk management strategy. It is a type of risk response, as stated in the NIST SP 800-39 Special Publication: 

Risk avoidance steers clear from threats that surpass your business’s risk appetite. The main goal is to prevent certain high-impact risks from occurring rather than dealing with its repercussions later on. 

Risk Avoidance vs Risk Reduction/Mitigation

Risk avoidance in cybersecurity completely eliminates the possibility of risk by choosing not to engage in certain activities that could lead to potential harm. On the other hand, risk reduction focuses on minimizing the impact or likelihood of a risk rather than avoiding it entirely. 

Here are some key differences between risk avoidance and risk reduction.

Factor	Risk Avoidance	Risk Reduction
Approach	Preventive, focused on avoiding the risk altogether.	Mitigative, aimed at managing and lessening the risk’s effects.
Risk Exposure	Zero risk exposure since the activity is avoided.	Some risk exposure remains but at a lower level.
Implementation	It involves abstaining from actions or decisions, often requiring a strategic shift.	Involves adding controls, policies, or safeguards to mitigate risk.
Example	Not entering a high-risk market to avoid potential financial loss.	Installing security checks to reduce the chances of a data breach.
Suitability	Used when the risk is too severe or unacceptable.	Used when the risk is manageable and mitigation is more feasible than avoidance.

Understanding Risk Avoidance with an example

A lot companies consider disabling ‘monlist’ command which reduces the amount of NTP servers supporting monlist. This is because older versions of NTP software are vulnerable to DDoS attacks. An upgrade to versions 4.2.7 or above, the command is disables and hence the vulnerability is patched. 

While the strategy described doesn’t completely avoid using NTP servers, it could be seen as a form of risk avoidance when we focus specifically on the monlist command. 

This approach aligns with the principle of risk avoidance by eliminating the source of the risk entirely, rather than just reducing its likelihood or impact. Once the monlist command is disabled or removed, the specific threat vector associated with it is not just mitigated but completely avoided.

How to Build a Risk Avoidance Strategy?

A risk avoidance strategy should be implemented only after evaluating alternative options of risk mitigation, sharing, transferring, etc. Once you’re clear with that, there are several tasks you need to carry out to avoid risks that can severely affect a business. 

You can use the following steps to create a concrete risk avoidance strategy for your business:

1. Assess and identify high-impact risks 

Conducting periodic risk assessments is a healthy cybersecurity habit, and it contributes majorly to building a risk avoidance strategy. Most risk assessment processes contain the following major steps:

• Identifying potential threats like phishing, malware, unauthorized access, SQL attacks, etc. 
• Assessing the likelihood and potential damage each threat could cause (e.g., data breaches, downtime)
• Controlling the risks involving security measures such as firewalls, encryption, MFA, and regular patching to reduce risks.
• Recording the threats, risk assessments, and security controls. Review and update regularly to stay ahead of evolving threats.

The main goal of conducting a risk assessment here is to identify high-impact risks so you can prioritize them effectively in your risk avoidance strategy. 

2. Quantify risks according to impact

In cybersecurity, risks can be quantified by calculating the cost of a data breach, downtime, or compliance violation. Cyber risk quantification include methods like Factor Analysis of Information Risk (FAIR) Model or using NIST Risk Quantification Model. 

Apart from these, to absolutely determine if a risk must be avoided at all costs, the best factor to take in is its financial impact. Examples of such methods include:

• Risk Matrix: Assign scores based on likelihood (e.g., high, medium, low) and impact (e.g., minor, moderate, severe). For example, a ransomware attack might have a high likelihood and severe financial impact, placing it in a top-priority category.
• Annualized Loss Expectancy (ALE): This method estimates the annual cost of a risk. For example, if a phishing attack costs $50,000 per occurrence and is likely to happen twice a year, the ALE would be $100,000.
• Monetary Impact: Quantify potential losses from downtime, customer churn, or fines. A DDoS attack causing 5 hours of downtime could result in lost revenue, calculated based on hourly income.

Note: When viewing risks from business lens, your key approach should revolve around strategic risk management. Measuring it takes in factors like economic capital, expected revenue, and ROI. 

3. Consider alternative mitigation methods

After you assess the severity of the risk, if you discover that it can be mitigated using any given method, then you should go forward with it. If not, then consider avoiding the risk altogether. 

For each risk, consider different ways to minimize its impact or occurrence. Consider using technical controls like high-grade encryption, MFA, changes in business processes, having a backup plan like cyber insurance to cover financial damages. 

Weigh the severity and alternative mitigation strategies to choose the most cost-effective solution to avoid or minimize risks.

4. Implement measures to eliminate risks

The most direct form of eliminating risk is avoiding the risky action altogether. But this should happen only after you’ve considered the alternative methods of dealing with risk.

Eliminating also requires you to revise workflows or operations to avoid potential vulnerabilities. For example, you could remove remote access to sensitive systems in your business to remove the risk of unauthorized external breaches.

Sometimes, switching to more secure alternatives can also eliminate risk. For instance, if you’re currently managing your cloud infrastructure with basic tools, you’re exposed to potential security vulnerabilities and compliance issues.

5. Continuously monitor your risks

You need to remain vigilant and responsive to evolving threats to proactively avoid risks you don’t want to deal with. This involves real-time surveillance using risk monitoring tools and software for continuous visibility into your cloud infrastructure.

Also, monitor your operational environment and any updates in regulatory compliance requirements. Schedule frequent reviews of your risk landscape and update your assessments based on new threat intelligence. 

The best way to go forward with continuous monitoring is with a software that fulfills all the above requirements along with incident management, automated alerts and notifications. Addressing issues before they escalate is not possible without competent tool. 

Monitoring and avoiding risks with Sprinto

Sprinto maps security controls to industry framework requirements and categorizes respective risks according to various risk scenarios. These risks are further mapped to multiple controls along with risk owners and status. 

The cherry on the top here is that you get a holistic view of all the risks in your infrastructure with a dedicated risk dashboard. Furthermore, you can start an instant risk assessment or pre-schedule it periodically to avoid hassle later. 

The platform provides inherent and residual risk scores to all risks so you can decide if you want to avoid risks with off the chart scores. 

Based on the risk score, you can decide to either accept the risk or further address it by choosing to avoid, transfer, or mitigate it. If you opt to avoid, you can include detailed treatment plan notes for each action taken.

The bottom line

The key to staying ahead lies not just in avoiding risks but in building resilient systems that can adapt to the ever-changing threat landscape. As technology evolves, so too must our approach to cybersecurity.

The future of risk management in general lies in predictive analysis with advanced machine learning algorithms, integrated risk ecosystems, and AI-driven decision-making to respond to risks. 

Risk management will become a collaborative effort, with real-time threat intelligence shared across industries and borders. So if you’re one of those businesses that want to have a more proactive approach, rather than a reactive one, move fast without breaking things. 

Frequently Asked Questions

1. Why is risk avoidance important?

Risk avoidance helps companies protect their financial stability, maintain operational continuity, and preserve their reputation. If organizations fail to identify and eliminate such potential threats before they materialize, then they will waste the resources that they spent on post-crisis management. It also inspires stakeholder confidence and build a competitive advantage in the marketplace.

2. Can implementing the right security controls help avoid risks?

Yes, implementing appropriate security controls is indeed an effective way to avoid risks. These controls act as preventive measures, creating barriers against potential threats. They can include technological solutions like firewalls and encryption, physical measures such as access control systems, and procedural controls like regular security audits and employee training programs. 

3. What are some examples of risk avoidance?

Some of the most common examples of risk avoidance include:

• Discontinuing a high-risk product line or service
• Relocating facilities away from disaster-prone areas
• Avoiding expansion into unstable markets or regions
• Not storing sensitive customer data if it’s not necessary for operations

4. What is the difference between risk avoidance and risk retention?

Risk avoidance involves completely eliminating exposure to specific risks by ceasing or modifying activities that could lead to losses. Risk-retention, conversely, is a strategy where an organization accepts and manages certain risks internally. This might be done because the potential loss is small or the probability of occurrence is low.