The organization should establish and document a process for regularly analyzing the vulnerabilities of its critical infrastructure.
This process should include an evaluation of the potential impacts on operations in case of service interruption or destruction.
The analysis must be based on various pre-defined scenarios, such as technical failures, malicious attacks, or natural disasters, to comprehensively assess the risks.
Key steps for conducting comprehensive vulnerability analysis and impact assessment include the following:
- Defining and document all essential hardware, software, networks, and data that support core operations.
- Creating a range of realistic scenarios, including technical failures (e.g., hardware malfunction, software bugs), malicious attacks (e.g., cyberattacks, insider threats), and natural disasters (e.g., floods, earthquakes).
- Analysing specific weaknesses in the critical infrastructure that could be exploited or impacted for each identified scenario.
- Quantifying the potential consequences of each scenario, considering downtime, data loss, financial costs, regulatory penalties, and damage to reputation.
- Compiling a comprehensive report detailing vulnerabilities, potential impacts and recommended mitigation strategies and controls.
