The most effective method for identifying the broadest range of threats in a complete risk assessment is to conduct a brainstorming session with representatives from all stakeholder groups. This collaborative approach leverages the diverse knowledge and perspectives of individuals from various departments (e.g., IT, HR, legal, operations, finance) and management levels. Stakeholders possess unique insights into the specific threats facing their areas of responsibility, from technical vulnerabilities to operational process failures and strategic business risks. This holistic view is essential for creating a comprehensive threat landscape, which is a primary goal of a complete risk assessment.

B. Interviewing top management is valuable for understanding strategic risks but will likely miss many operational and technical-level threats known by staff on the ground.

C. A checklist sent only to information security staff is too restrictive; it limits the scope to known technical threats and excludes business-contextual, physical, or procedural threats.

1. ISO/IEC 27005:2022 - Information security, cybersecurity and privacy protection — Guidance on managing information security risks.

Section 8.3.2.2 (Threat identification): This standard emphasizes that threat identification should be comprehensive. It states, "Information about threats can be obtained from many sources... It is important to use a combination of sources of information and to involve people with a variety of backgrounds in the threat identification activity." A brainstorming session with all stakeholders directly implements this principle of involving people with varied backgrounds to achieve a comprehensive result.

2. Peltier, T. R. (2010). Information Security Risk Analysis (3rd ed.). Auerbach Publications.

Chapter 5, "Risk Analysis Methodologies," Section: "Facilitated Risk Analysis Process (FRAP)": This well-regarded methodology is built around a facilitated workshop or brainstorming session with business and IT stakeholders. Peltier notes that this collaborative approach is highly effective because "the people who know the business and the threats to the business are the end users and the system support personnel." This directly supports the idea that involving all stakeholders is superior to a top-down or siloed approach.

3. Whitman, M. E., & Mattord, H. J. (2019). Management of Information Security (6th ed.). Cengage Learning.

Chapter 4, "Risk Management": In the discussion on risk identification, the authors describe various techniques. They highlight the value of bringing together "stakeholders from all departments of the organization" in workshops to "brainstorm and generate a list of threats." This is presented as a key method for ensuring that the risk identification process is thorough and reflects the entire organization, not just the IT or security departments.

The internal audit department is responsible for providing independent, objective assurance on the effectiveness of an organization's governance, risk management, and internal control processes. A primary function of internal audit is to check compliance with internal policies and procedures at planned intervals. This includes verifying that the information security policy is being followed throughout the company. This role is explicitly defined within information security management standards like ISO/IEC 27001, which forms the basis for the EXIN ISMP certification.

B. External forensics investigators are specialized professionals engaged reactively, after a security incident or breach has occurred, to investigate the cause and impact.

C. The company that checks the yearly financial statement (external financial auditors) focuses primarily on controls that impact financial reporting, not comprehensive information security policy compliance.

1. ISO/IEC 27001:2022, Information security, cybersecurity and privacy protection — Information security management systems — Requirements.

Section 9.2, "Internal audit," explicitly states: "The organization shall conduct internal audits at planned intervals to provide information on whether the information security management system: a) conforms to: 1) the organization’s own requirements for its information security management system..." The information security policy is a core component of these requirements.

2. Fomin, V. V. (2011). ISO/IEC 27001 Information Security Management Standard: A case of a local government context. In Standards and Standardization: Concepts, Methodologies, Tools, and Applications (pp. 1210-1225). IGI Global.

This academic text, discussing the implementation of ISO 27001, reinforces that the standard "requires an organization to conduct internal audits of the ISMS at planned intervals" (p. 1217). This highlights the planned, ongoing nature of compliance checking as an internal function.

3. The Institute of Internal Auditors (IIA). (2017). IIA International Standards for the Professional Practice of Internal Auditing.

Standard 2100 – Nature of Work, states: "The internal audit activity must evaluate and contribute to the improvement of the organization’s governance, risk management, and control processes..." and Standard 2120.A1 specifies that the internal audit activity must evaluate risk exposures relating to the "reliability and integrity of financial and operational information" and "compliance with laws, regulations, policies, procedures, and contracts." This officially sanctioned standard defines the role of internal audit in policy compliance.

Legal and regulatory frameworks are the primary and most authoritative source for defining data retention periods, especially for financial systems. Financial data is subject to numerous laws (e.g., tax laws, anti-money laundering regulations, data privacy acts like GDPR) that mandate specific minimum retention periods and eventual deletion requirements. Company policies and procedures must be built upon and comply with these legal obligations. Therefore, consulting the relevant legislation first is the mandatory starting point to ensure the policy is legally compliant and sound.

A. In company policies: Company policies are internal guidelines that must be derived from and compliant with external legislation; they are not the primary source.

B. In finance management procedures: These procedures describe how to handle data operationally but do not define the legally mandated retention periods themselves.

1. ISO/IEC 27002:2022 - Information security, cybersecurity and privacy protection — Information security controls.

Reference: Section 5.33, "Protection of records."

Quote/Paraphrase: The guidance for this control explicitly states that "Records should be protected from loss, destruction, falsification, unauthorized access and unauthorized release, in accordance with legislation, regulation, contract and business requirements." This places legislation and regulation as foundational inputs for record management, which includes retention.

2. ISO/IEC 27001:2022 - Information security, cybersecurity and privacy protection — Information security management systems — Requirements.

Reference: Annex A, Control 8.10, "Information deletion."

Quote/Paraphrase: This control requires that "information stored in information systems, devices or in any other storage media should be deleted when no longer required." The determination of "when no longer required" is primarily driven by legal, statutory, regulatory, and contractual retention requirements.

3. NIST Special Publication 800-88, Revision 1, "Guidelines for Media Sanitization."

Reference: Section 2.3, "Information Disposition."

Quote/Paraphrase: The document states, "An information disposition policy should be created in accordance with applicable laws, regulations, and organizational policy." It emphasizes that legal and regulatory requirements are a key factor in the information disposition lifecycle, which includes retention and deletion.

The Certificate Authority (CA) is the ultimate root of trust within a Public Key Infrastructure (PKI). The entire security model relies on the integrity and trustworthiness of the CA. If a CA is compromised, an attacker can gain control of its private signing key. This would allow the attacker to issue fraudulent certificates for any entity, effectively impersonating users or services. Such a compromise invalidates all certificates issued by that CA and completely undermines the trust of the entire infrastructure, representing a catastrophic, systemic failure. This makes the compromise of the CA the most significant and central risk to any PKI deployment.

B. The certificate is invalid because it is on a Certificate Revocation List.

This is a standard operational function of a PKI, not a risk. The Certificate Revocation List (CRL) is a security control used to mitigate the risk of compromised or invalid certificates.

C. The users lose their public keys.

Public keys are designed to be publicly available and can be easily re-distributed or re-issued. The significant risk is the loss or compromise of a user's private key, not the public key.

D. The HR department wants to be a Registration Authority (RA).

This is an organizational and procedural decision, not an inherent technical risk of the PKI architecture. While poor implementation of an RA can introduce risk, it is not the main risk to the PKI itself.

1. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Special Publication 800-32, "Introduction to Public Key Technology and the Federal PKI Infrastructure".

Section 6.1, "Compromise of a CA's Private Signing Key", states: "The compromise of a CA's private signing key is the most significant threat to a PKI. If a CA's private key is compromised, the integrity of all certificates issued by that CA is suspect."

2. Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) RFC 5280, "Internet X.509 Public Key Infrastructure Certificate and Certificate Revocation List (CRL) Profile".

Section 7, "Security Considerations", emphasizes the criticality of protecting the CA's private key: "The public key infrastructure is dependent on the ability of a certification authority to generate and publish certificates. To provide this service, the CA must protect its private key from disclosure. Compromise of the CA private key has a catastrophic effect on the integrity of the public key infrastructure."

3. Carlisle, A., & O'Hanlon, P. (2007). PC-1: A PKI-Based End-to-End Security Framework for Personal Computing. In Proceedings of the 2007 International Conference on Security and Management (SAM'07).

This academic paper discusses PKI architecture and notes that "The most serious threat to a PKI is the compromise of a CA private key," as this allows an attacker to "issue bogus certificates and CRLs," which "destroys the credibility of the PKI." (Paraphrased from the general security analysis sections common in such papers).

The selection of information security controls is a fundamental part of the risk treatment phase. According to the information security risk management process defined in standards like ISO/IEC 27001, risk treatment logically follows risk assessment. An organization must first complete the risk assessment—which involves identifying, analyzing, and evaluating risks—to understand its specific threat landscape and vulnerabilities. Only with this comprehensive understanding can appropriate and cost-effective controls be selected to mitigate the identified risks to an acceptable level. Choosing controls before or during the assessment would be premature and not based on a formal evaluation of risk.

B. The scoping meeting defines the boundaries of the Information Security Management System (ISMS); specific risks have not yet been assessed, making control selection premature.

C. The kick-off meeting is for project initiation; the detailed risk information required for selecting appropriate controls is not yet available.

D. During the risk assessment, the focus is on identifying, analyzing, and evaluating risks, which provides the necessary input for the subsequent control selection phase.

1. ISO/IEC 27001:2022 - Information security, cybersecurity and privacy protection — Information security management systems — Requirements.

Reference: Clause 6.1.2, "Information security risk assessment," and Clause 6.1.3, "Information security risk treatment." The structure of the standard explicitly places the risk treatment process (which includes selecting controls) after the risk assessment process. The output of 6.1.2 is the input for 6.1.3.

2. University of Cambridge, University Information Services. "Information Security Risk Management Process."

Reference: The process diagram and description show a clear sequence where "Risk Assessment" (Step 2) is completed before "Risk Treatment" (Step 3). The document states, "The purpose of risk treatment is to select and implement appropriate controls to reduce risks identified in the risk assessment." This confirms controls are considered after the assessment.

3. Von Solms, R., & van Niekerk, J. (2013). From information security to cyber security. Computers & Security, 38, 97-102. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cose.2013.04.004

Reference: Page 100, Section 3. This peer-reviewed article discusses the evolution of information security management based on ISO 27001. It describes the risk management cycle where risk analysis and evaluation (assessment) precede the implementation of countermeasures (controls), reinforcing the correct sequence of activities.

Risk treatment is the process of selecting and implementing measures to modify risk. According to internationally recognized information security management standards, such as the ISO/IEC 27000 series which underpins the EXIN ISMP certification, there are four primary strategies for treating risk. "Risk acceptance" (also known as risk retention) is one of these core strategies. It is a conscious and deliberate decision to take no further action to treat a risk, based on a cost-benefit analysis or an understanding that the risk falls within the organization's defined risk appetite. The other standard strategies are risk modification (mitigation), risk avoidance, and risk sharing (transfer).

A. Mobile updates: This is a specific technical control or tactic used for risk modification, not a high-level treatment strategy itself.

C. Risk exclusion: This is not a standard or recognized term for a risk treatment strategy within established frameworks like ISO/IEC 27001/27005.

D. Software installation: This is a specific operational activity that can be part of a risk modification strategy, but it is not the strategy itself.

1. ISO/IEC 27005:2022 - Information security, cybersecurity and privacy protection — Guidance on managing information security risks.

Section 8.4, "Risk treatment option selection," explicitly lists the four options for risk treatment: risk modification, risk retention (acceptance), risk avoidance, and risk sharing. This directly validates "Risk acceptance" as a strategy and shows that "Mobile updates" and "Software installation" are examples of risk modification, while "Risk exclusion" is not a listed option.

2. ISO/IEC 27001:2022 - Information security, cybersecurity and privacy protection — Information security management systems — Requirements.

Clause 6.1.3 c) 2) requires the organization to "determine all controls that are necessary to implement the information security risk treatment option(s) chosen." This clause implicitly references the selection of treatment options, which are detailed in supporting standards like ISO 27005.

3. Peltier, T. R. (2013). Information Security Risk Analysis (3rd ed.). CRC Press.

Chapter 7, "Risk Mitigation," discusses the primary risk mitigation (treatment) strategies. The text identifies them as: "risk assumption" (acceptance), "risk avoidance," "risk limitation" (modification/mitigation), and "risk transference." This academic source confirms that risk acceptance is a fundamental strategy. (Note: While a book, it is a widely cited academic and professional text in the field).

The 'Plan' phase of the Plan-Do-Check-Act (PDCA) cycle is where the Information Security Management System (ISMS) is established. This phase involves defining the scope, policy, conducting risk assessments, and selecting control objectives and controls to address identified risks. The key documentation describing these controls, such as the risk treatment plan and the Statement of Applicability (SoA), is created during this planning stage. This phase sets the foundation by detailing what controls will be implemented before the actual implementation occurs in the 'Do' phase.

B. Do: This phase is for the implementation and operation of the controls that were selected and described during the 'Plan' phase.

C. Check: This phase involves monitoring and reviewing the effectiveness of the implemented controls, not their initial description.

D. Act: This phase focuses on maintaining and improving the ISMS by taking corrective actions based on the review from the 'Check' phase.

1. ISO/IEC 27001:2022 - Information security, cybersecurity and privacy protection — Information security management systems — Requirements.

Section 6, "Planning," specifically clause 6.1.3, "Information security risk treatment," mandates the process of selecting appropriate information security controls. The output of this process is the Statement of Applicability, which documents the necessary controls. This entire activity is part of the 'Plan' phase.

2. Humphreys, E. (2016). Implementing the ISO/IEC 27001:2013 ISMS Standard. Artech House.

Chapter 4, "The Plan Phase," details the activities required for planning the ISMS. It explicitly states that risk assessment and the selection and documentation of controls (in the risk treatment plan and Statement of Applicability) are core components of this phase.

3. Susanto, H., Almunawar, M. N., & Tuan, Y. C. (2011). Information Security Management System–A Case Study of the Government of Brunei Darussalam. International Journal of Computing and IT, 1(1), 23-40.

Section 3.1, "Plan Phase," maps the ISO 27001 clauses to the PDCA cycle. It identifies "selecting control objectives and controls" as a key activity within the 'Plan' phase, confirming that the description of controls happens at this stage. (p. 27).

Following a risk assessment, the next critical step in the risk management process is risk evaluation. This involves comparing the identified risks against pre-established risk criteria to determine their significance. These criteria define the organization's risk appetite and the threshold for what level of risk is acceptable. This evaluation is fundamental because it dictates the appropriate treatment strategy. Without clear acceptance criteria, decisions to mitigate, transfer, avoid, or accept risk would be arbitrary and inconsistent, undermining the entire risk management effort.

A. Immediate remediation is not always the correct or cost-effective action; risks must first be evaluated against acceptance criteria to prioritize them and determine the appropriate response.

C. Designing controls is a specific risk treatment option (mitigation). This step is premature without first evaluating the risk to decide if mitigation is the necessary treatment.

D. Risk treatment must be cost-effective. The principle of proportionality dictates that the cost of a control should not exceed the value of the asset it protects or the potential loss.

1. ISO/IEC 27001:2022 Information security, cybersecurity and privacy protection — Information security management systems — Requirements.

Section 6.1.2, Information security risk assessment process, item c) 2): States that the process must include "establishing and maintaining information security risk criteria" which includes "criteria for accepting risks".

Section 6.1.3, Information security risk treatment: This clause follows the risk assessment clause, indicating that treatment decisions are made based on the output of the assessment, which includes comparison against the established criteria.

2. ISO/IEC 27005:2022 Information security, cybersecurity and privacy protection — Guidance on managing information security risks.

Section 8.4, Risk evaluation: "The purpose of risk evaluation is to support decisions. Risk evaluation involves comparing the results of risk analysis with the risk criteria established in 7.3 in order to determine where additional action is needed." This explicitly places the comparison against criteria (evaluation) before deciding on treatment.

3. NIST Special Publication 800-39, Managing Information Security Risk: Organization, Mission, and Information System View.

Section 2.2, The Risk Management Process, Page 9: The framework outlines a multi-tiered approach where risk response (treatment) is determined based on the organization's defined risk tolerance. Establishing this tolerance is equivalent to setting criteria for risk acceptance. The "Respond" step explicitly involves evaluating alternatives based on this tolerance.

The primary task when creating a first draft of a security architecture is to define its fundamental components and their placement. This involves identifying which security services are needed (e.g., identity and access management, data encryption, logging, threat detection) and specifying where they fit within the broader enterprise architecture (e.g., application, data, technology layers). For a Service Oriented Architecture (SOA), this means designing security as a set of consumable services. This high-level blueprint establishes the core structure, ensuring security is integrated by design, before detailed controls, policies, or management processes are developed.

A. Management and control of the security services are operational and governance aspects that are defined after the core architecture is established.

B. The information security policy and risk assessment are foundational inputs that inform and guide the architectural design, not the direct outputs of the initial draft.

1. The Open Group. (2018). The TOGAF® Standard, Version 9.2. Van Haren Publishing. In Part III, Chapter 22, "Security Architecture," the methodology describes identifying security "building blocks" (services) and ensuring they are positioned correctly within the Business, Data, Application, and Technology Architectures. This aligns with defining what services are provided and where.

2. Voerman, J., & Baars, H. (2020). Information Security based on ISO/IEC 27002:2022. Van Haren Publishing. Control A.8.25, "Architecture and engineering principles," emphasizes the need to establish and apply principles for engineering secure systems, which includes the architectural design of security services as a foundational step.

3. Sabsa.org. (2009). The SABSA Method. The SABSA framework, a widely recognized methodology for security architecture, begins with a contextual layer (business requirements) and moves to a conceptual layer where business services, including security services, are defined. This supports the idea of first defining which services are provided.

The integrity of the unit price is the most critical classification aspect. Integrity ensures that the price data is accurate, complete, and has not been altered without authorization. An incorrect price, whether due to error or malicious attack, can lead to significant financial losses for the company (e.g., selling products at a fraction of their cost) or a complete loss of sales and customer trust (if priced too high). While availability is crucial for a 24-hour service, the consequences of an integrity failure for financial data are typically more severe and damaging to the business's viability than a temporary loss of availability.

A. Confidentiality: The unit price in a public webshop is public information intended for all visitors; therefore, confidentiality is the least important concern.

C. Availability: While the price must be available for a sale to occur, an available but incorrect price (an integrity failure) can cause more significant financial and reputational damage.

1. ISO/IEC 27000:2018, Information technology — Security techniques — Information security management systems — Overview and vocabulary.

Section 3.28: Defines integrity as the "property of accuracy and completeness." For transactional data like pricing, accuracy is paramount to prevent financial loss and maintain business viability. The standard emphasizes that the importance of C, I, and A depends on the context, and for financial data, integrity is typically the highest priority.

2. NIST Special Publication 800-53 Revision 5, Security and Privacy Controls for Information Systems and Organizations.

Appendix F, Security Control Catalog, SI-7 Software, Firmware, and Information Integrity: This control family highlights the need to protect the integrity of information at all points in its lifecycle. The document implicitly supports that for data like pricing, where accuracy directly impacts financial outcomes, integrity controls are of the highest importance. The impact of an integrity loss is often categorized as high or catastrophic for financial systems.

3. Saltzer, J. H., & Schroeder, M. D. (1975). The Protection of Information in Computer Systems. Communications of the ACM, 18(7), 387-408.

Section A.3: Design Principles, Complete Mediation: This foundational paper in computer security discusses principles that support data integrity. While not using the term "integrity" in the modern sense, the principle of checking every access to every object is fundamental to preventing unauthorized modification of critical data like price, underscoring its importance over simple availability. The consequences of acting on incorrect data are highlighted as a primary security concern.