What is a risk register?

What is a risk register?

Your business has unique risks based on your location, industry, size, product, employee profile, data collected and more. A risk register logs, prioritizes and tracks these risks for you.

Why do I need a risk register?

A risk register is an important part of a documented data privacy program. Beyond formality, it is a tool that will help you to build a business continuity plan, which helps you to respond quickly to various disasters that your business might face.

No business is alike

A company in Northern California will have different risks than a company in Southern California. Similarly, a company with remote workers will have different risks than on-premise teams. A risk register will outline physical risks associated with your office space, virtual risks, people risks and more.

What does a risk register look like?

A risk register is typically created in a tool like Excel. It will present a formal list, risk categories and risk scores.

How do I create a risk register?

To create a risk register, outline the common categories of risk. Create an internal team, set a meeting and walk through these categorical areas. Ask your team to contribute risks that are unique to your organization.

Who should help?

Executive support and participation is always helpful. Leadership from Human Resources, Legal, Risk, Product, Information Security, Development and Operations create a strong foundation to explore risk.

What about not doing it?

It may be difficult to create an incident response or business continuity plan without exploring your company's risks. it is important to know what you are protecting and what you are protecting your key assets from in order to execute a strategic cybersecurity program.

Customers want it

Most customer security questionnaires that we answer on behalf of our customers ask for a documented risk management program. A risk register is a key function.

How do I maintain a risk register?

Companies with established, predictable and long-standing businesses might update a risk register annually. Those experiencing physical, digital, people, product, investor and business changes may update it more often.

Time requirement for maintenance

Assuming that your business does not experience drastic change, it will require less time to update a risk register than was required to create it.

‍