Threat Prioritization and Response: A Guide to Risk Management in Cybersecurity

In cybersecurity, managing risks is a critical part of maintaining the safety and integrity of systems. One of the key steps in this process is threat prioritization — the practice of assessing which threats pose the greatest risk to your systems, and responding to them accordingly. This helps security teams focus resources on the most pressing issues, ensuring that high-risk vulnerabilities are addressed before they can cause significant damage.

Let’s dive into some common techniques used to rank and rate threats, and how these methods can guide effective responses.

Probability x Damage Potential Ranking

One of the most straightforward methods for ranking threats is the Probability x Damage Potential approach. This technique evaluates each threat based on two factors: how likely it is to occur (probability), and how severe the impact would be if it does happen (damage potential).

In practice, threats are assigned a risk severity score on a scale of 1 to 100, where 100 represents the most severe possible risk. The higher the score, the more critical the threat. For example, a threat with a high probability of occurring (say, a known vulnerability in commonly used software) and a high damage potential (such as data loss or service disruption) might score a 90 or higher, indicating a high priority for remediation.