Risk Management

First read the article and then formulate your response by referring to the guiding question, also in the posting. Your response should not be more than 250 words Review this article then in a brief posting provide your opinion as to whether you believe that implementing the Essential Eight obviates the need for formal Risk Management planning.

Overhaul of ASD′s Top 4 cyber threat strategies: Broadened to ″essential eight″. The Australian Signals Directorate has undertaken a significant revamp of its top four strategies to mitigate targeted cyber intrusions, doubling the core security controls to eight and expanding its reach to cover a wider threat range than just ″targeted″ attacks. It′s the first overhaul to the highly-regarded controls – which are mandatory for all government agencies, and which form the basis for the security posture of many private enterprises – since 2014. ASD first published the guidance in 2010. It says the controls mitigate over 85 percent of techniques used in targeted cyber intrusions. Until now, the document [pdf] has centred on four strategies: application whitelisting, patching applications, patching operating system vulnerabilities, and restricting administrative privileges. Once those four had been met, agencies could select to implement additional mitigation strategies to address security gaps from a list of 30 other recommended controls. Now the ASD has extended that core list from four to eight, under what it is now calling the ″essential eight″ strategies to mitigate cyber security incidents. Once the essential eight mitigation strategies have been correctly implemented, the ASD says, a ″baseline cyber security posture has been achieved″. ″While no single mitigation strategy is guaranteed to prevent cyber security incidents, ASD recommends organisations implement a package of eight essential strategies as a baseline,″ it said in official guidance, sighted by iTnews. ″This baseline makes it much harder for adversaries to compromise systems.″ By Allie Coyne, iTNews, Feb 6 2017 https://www.itnews.com.au/news/drastic-overhaul-of-asds-top-4-cyber-threat-stategies-449787