Risk Assessment Help Available

As Microsoft prepares to release security improvements for Windows XP, many of which will appear in the next service pack, the company is also releasing improved documentation and tools to help customers proactively uncover, rank, and mitigate security issues. For example, some Microsoft Certified Partners with security expertise are offering free risk assessments. Such assessments benefit the partner and Microsoft as they will likely uncover the need for additional work or products. But for such assessments to help customers, they must do more than merely scratch the surface—they must help the customer mitigate the greatest threats.

Risk Assessments

A risk assessment typically begins by identifying the processes, resources, and technologies that an organization uses to implement security and privacy. This helps the organization evaluate its implementation against a known standard. A risk assessment then helps the organization triage the results so that it can mitigate the greatest risks or threats first.