Risk Response Task vs Issue in advanced risk

[美月渡]

Please tell me the difference between risk response tasks and issues, or the difference between action items and remediation tasks.

Both seem to be for addressing residual risks.

[ShafrazMubarak · Accepted solution]

Risk Response Tasks are proactive measures taken to address potential risks before they materialize. These tasks are part of a risk management plan and are designed to mitigate, transfer, accept, or avoid risks. Essentially, they are actions planned in advance to handle uncertainties that might impact your project or organization. Issues, on the other hand, are problems that have already occurred and are impacting your project or organization. Issues require immediate attention and resolution. They are reactive in nature, meaning you deal with them as they arise. They may arise as part of compliance failure (attestation failure/indicator failure), audit finding or general issue reported by a user and then triaged by internal team. 

Remediation Tasks are specific to addressing and resolving issues or vulnerabilities that have been identified. In the context of GRC, remediation tasks are often created to fix issues, policy exceptions, risk response tasks. These tasks are more focused and are directly tied to correcting a specific problem

In summary, while both sets of tasks aim to manage risks and issues, risk response tasks and action items are more proactive and broad, whereas issues and remediation tasks are reactive and specific to resolving identified problems.

I hope this helps! If you have any more questions or need further clarification, feel free to ask.

__PRESENT

[美月渡]

Thank you so much for answering my questions. I was able to understand it very clearly.
I'm very sorry, but let me ask you one more question.

In RAM, you can set it to automatically create an issue when the remaining risk exceeds the risk appetite.

Also, in Utah, you could set it to require a risk response task when the remaining risk exceeds the risk appetite, which was discontinued in Vancouver.

Is it optional to consider "remaining risk exceeds risk appetite" as an issue?
Which is best practice for dealing with exceeding risk appetite: a risk response task or an issue?

What kind of use case would you use a remediation task to fix a risk response task?

Would you create one when you found that the risk response task was insufficient to address the risk?
In that case, would you create it from the list of issues, rather than automatically creating it?

Thank you very much.

[ShafrazMubarak]

When it comes to deciding whether to treat "remaining risk exceeds risk appetite" as an issue, it's really up to your organization's risk management policies. Some organizations prefer to flag any exceedance of risk appetite as an issue to ensure it gets immediate attention and resolution. This way, risks are documented, tracked, and addressed promptly. Others might opt for risk response tasks to proactively manage and mitigate the risk before it becomes a bigger problem. This proactive approach allows for planned actions to handle uncertainties that might impact the project or organization.

As for best practices, it depends on the situation. Risk response tasks are great for proactively managing and mitigating risks before they turn into issues. For example, if your organization identifies a potential risk of a data breach due to outdated software, you might create a risk response task to update the software and implement additional security measures. This way, you're addressing the risk before it becomes a problem. On the other hand, issues are best used when the risk has already materialized or is imminent, requiring immediate attention and resolution. For instance, if a data breech has already occurred, it would be treated as an issue that needs immediate investigation, containment, and remediation.

A remediation task can come into play when the initial measures taken were insufficient to fully mitigate the risk. This often hapfpens when new information or vulnerabilities are discovered after the initial risk response task was completed. For example, your organization might have identified a risk of unauthorized access to sensitive data and created a risk response task to implement multi-factor authentication (MFA). After implementing MFA, a security audit might reveal that some users are still bypassing MFA due to a configuratin flaw. In this case, you would create a remediation task to fix the configuration flaw and ensure that MFA is properly enforced for all users.

When it comes to creating remediation tasks from the list of issues, this is typically done when you find that the initial risk response task was insufficient. This ensures that the issue is tracked and addressed systematically. For example, an issue might be logged due to a failed compliance audit, revealing that certain security controls were not implemented as required. In this scenario, you would create a remediation task to implement the missing security controls and ensure compliance. This task would be tracked and monitord until the issue is resolved, ensuring that the organization addresses the identified problem effectively.

[美月渡]

Thank you for your advice. Your description of a specific case helped me to visualize it.