Your first assessment
Your manager says: "Check the risks on the reception computer by Friday." Where do you start?
Good news: there are five steps, and you always do them in the same order.
By the end of this lesson
Note
I can carry out a simple risk assessment and record what I find.
Key words
| Word | What it means | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Component | one part of a system | A cable, a disk, a user account |
| Probability | how likely a risk is to happen | |
| Impact | how much damage it would do | |
| Risk score | probability times impact | |
| Prioritise | put the risks in order, the biggest first | |
| Technical term | the exact word used in IT, such as "malware" or "patch" | |
| Malware | harmful software | |
| Mitigation | an action that makes a risk smaller |
The cells students fill in are left blank in this preview.
Starter
Have a go
Starter
3 questionsHave a go: your answers are marked here and then forgotten. Sign in if you would like your score kept, and to pick up where you left off.Sign in to keep your score
Your answers are marked here and are not kept. A college account keeps every student’s marks.
Five steps of a risk assessment
- Assess the system. List its parts, the components.
- Identify risks. What could go wrong with each part?
- Calculate. Give each risk a probability and an impact.
- Analyse and prioritise. Work out the score and put the biggest first.
- Record. Write down what you found and what you will do, briefly, with the right technical terms.
Worked example: the reception computer
| Risk | Probability 1 to 5 | Impact 1 to 5 | Score | Order |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hard disk failure, no backup | 3 | 4 | 12 | 1 |
| Malware from an email | 4 | 3 | 12 | 2 |
| Visitor reads the screen | 4 | 2 | 8 | 3 |
| USB drive left in the port | 2 | 2 | 4 | 4 |
The cells students fill in are left blank in this preview.
When two scores are equal
Tip
Both of the top two score 12. Put the one with the higher impact first, because it does more harm if it happens. Here that is the disk failure.