Risk, threat, and vulnerability assessments each help IT teams identify and reduce security gaps, but they serve different purposes. A risk assessment measures potential impact, a threat assessment identifies possible attackers or hazards, and a vulnerability assessment finds weaknesses to fix.
You can’t get the results you need without choosing the best process for the job, so we’ll break down the differences between these three assessments.
Risks vs. threats vs. vulnerabilities
Understanding the differences starts with defining each core security concept: risks, threats, and vulnerabilities.
Risks
In IT, a security risk is any potential for loss, damage, or other negative impacts of threats, vulnerabilities, or other failures. Cyber risk includes both the likelihood of an incident and the potential repercussions, such as reputation damage, business interruption, financial loss, and compliance or legal ramifications.
Threats
A security threat is who or what could cause harm. We often see this word used to describe intentional threats or deliberate cyberattacks by a threat actor, such as malware, social engineering, and denial of service (DoS) attacks. However, the word also encompasses unintentional threats that could cause harm, such as sending a sensitive document to the wrong email address. (I’m looking at you, Gary.)
Vulnerabilities
A vulnerability is a potentially exploitable flaw or security weakness. While unpatched software often gets the most attention in this category, other potential vulnerabilities can include weak passwords, design flaws, and insecure configurations.
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Risk assessment
A cybersecurity risk assessment takes a broad look at the risk level to an organization's information systems and data. It aims to identify, evaluate, and prioritize the potential risk to both assets and operations so that the IT team can effectively mitigate them.
Risk assessments often look at the following:
Assets
Threats
Vulnerabilities
Likelihood of a security incident
Impact
Executive and IT teams frequently use this information to develop risk mitigation strategies, document findings, recommend actions, compare changes over time, suggest security controls, and support risk management. They may also use the findings to inform where they should focus their efforts to mitigate or fix risks.
Threat assessment
A threat assessment identifies who or what might attack your systems, how likely that threat is, and the potential impact. It focuses specifically on threat actors and their methods.
This type of analysis usually breaks down as follows:
Identify threats: Determine the potential sources of harm, such as cybercriminals or insider threats.
Assess threats: Analyze the nature, motivations, and methods of each threat, including how threats might exploit vulnerabilities and potential tactics they might use. Threat intelligence resources often help with this.
Evaluate threats: Assess the likelihood of each potential threat occurring in your environment and its potential impact on your organization.
Prioritize threats: Rank threats based on severity and probability.
IT teams can then use this information to mitigate those threats, guide decision-making, and allocate resources appropriately.
Vulnerability assessment
A vulnerability assessment identifies and ranks weaknesses in your systems, networks, or configurations so you can fix them before attackers exploit them. Most vulnerability assessments rely heavily on vulnerability scans to streamline the process.
That said, there are several types of vulnerability assessments that look at an environment from different angles. They may include the following:
Application vulnerability assessment
Host vulnerability assessment
Network vulnerability assessment
Wireless network vulnerability assessment
Database vulnerability assessment
Cloud vulnerability assessment
Physical security vulnerability assessment
Compliance-based vulnerability assessment
While there are different types of vulnerability assessments, they all share the common goal of hardening security, reducing the attack surface, and supporting vulnerability management.
Risk vs. threat vs. vulnerability assessments at a glance
Risk assessment | Threat assessment | Vulnerability assessment | |
|---|---|---|---|
Purpose | Identify and evaluate risks to minimize impacts | Identify and evaluate potential threats | Identify and evaluate potentially exploitable weaknesses in systems |
Methodology | Systematic hazard identification, risk analysis, and prioritization | Systematic analysis of threat sources and potential impacts | Systematic vulnerability scan and analysis of systems, applications, and networks to detect known vulnerabilities |
Frequency | Regular intervals, after org changes, after an incident, before strategic planning | Regular intervals, after org changes, after an incident, after receiving new cyber threat info | Regular intervals, after org changes, after an incident, after hardware or software changes |
Techniques | Surveys, interviews, checklists, risk matrix, risk assessment template | Threat modeling, scenario analysis, intelligence gathering | Vulnerability scanning, vulnerability assessment tools, manual testing |
Risk vs. threat vs. vulnerability assessment metaphor
Let’s say a storm might be headed for your area. You’ve gathered your bottled water and emergency Pop-Tarts, but you want a better idea of how this might play out.
First, you do a threat assessment of the situation, tracking the latest information on the storm. Then, you do a vulnerability assessment, identifying structural weaknesses in your house that could cause problems if the storm hits, such as loose shingles, cracked windows, and clogged gutters. Finally, you do a risk assessment when you consider how likely the storm is to actually hit you and whether the existing structural weaknesses might increase the potential damage.
If the risk seems high enough, you might try to address the vulnerabilities you identified as quickly as possible. Or you might choose to accept the risk and cross your fingers that your Pop-Tart feast isn’t interrupted by a deluge.
Risk vs. threat vs. vulnerability assessment FAQ
What is the main goal of security testing?
While each type of assessment is unique and nuanced, the ultimate goal of security testing is generally to provide the security team with information they can leverage to bolster security measures, protect sensitive information, and reduce the potential consequence of incidents. Therefore, many forms of testing support proactive cybersecurity.
What is penetration testing?
A penetration test is a security exercise in which testers simulate a real attack by attempting to exploit vulnerabilities. It’s a hands-on approach to testing the effectiveness of control measures. While it is distinct from risk, threat, and vulnerability assessments, a pen test might help validate or refine their findings.
What is threat hunting?
Threat hunting proactively searches for cyber threats within your environment. It can help uncover issues that automated systems might miss, helping refine and validate the findings of risk, threat, and vulnerability assessments.
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