Risk Management Plan

13 Jun Risk Management Plan

Project: Risk Management Plan

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Deliverables

As discussed in this course, risk management is an important process for all organizations. This is particularly true in

information systems, which provides critical support for organizational missions. The heart of risk management is a formal

risk management plan. The project activities described in this document allow you to fulfill the role of an employee

participating in the risk management process in a specific business situation.

The project is structured as follows:

Project Part Deliverable

Project Part 1 Task 1: Risk Management Plan

Task 2: Risk Assessment Plan

Task 3: Risk Mitigation Plan

Project Part 2 Task 1: Business Impact Analysis (BIA) Plan

Task 2: Business Continuity Plan (BCP)

Task 3: Disaster Recovery Plan (DRP)

Task 4: Computer Incident Response Team (CIRT) Plan

Submission Requirements

All project submissions should follow this format:

 Format: Microsoft Word or compatible

 Font: Arial, 10-point, double-space

 APA Citation Style

Scenario

You are an information technology (IT) intern working for Health Network, Inc. (Health Network), a fictitious health

services organization headquartered in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Health Network has over 600 employees throughout the

organization and generates $500 million USD in annual revenue. The company has two additional locations in Portland,

Oregon and Arlington, Virginia, which support a mix of corporate operations. Each corporate facility is located near a co-

location data center, where production systems are located and managed by third-party data center hosting vendors.

Company Products

Health Network has three main products: HNetExchange, HNetPay, and HNetConnect.

HNetExchange is the primary source of revenue for the company. The service handles secure electronic medical

messages that originate from its customers, such as large hospitals, which are then routed to receiving customers such as

clinics.

Project: Risk Management Plan

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HNetPay is a Web portal used by many of the company’s HNetExchange customers to support the management of

secure payments and billing. The HNetPay Web portal, hosted at Health Network production sites, accepts various forms

of payments and interacts with credit-card processing organizations much like a Web commerce shopping cart.

HNetConnect is an online directory that lists doctors, clinics, and other medical facilities to allow Health Network

customers to find the right type of care at the right locations. It contains doctors’ personal information, work addresses,

medical certifications, and types of services that the doctors and clinics offer. Doctors are given credentials and are able

to update the information in their profile. Health Network customers, which are the hospitals and clinics, connect to all

three of the company’s products using HTTPS connections. Doctors and potential patients are able to make payments

and update their profiles using Internet-accessible HTTPS Web sites.

Information Technology Infrastructure Overview

Health Network operates in three production data centers that provide high availability across the company’s products.

The data centers host about 1,000 production servers, and Health Network maintains 650 corporate laptops and

company-issued mobile devices for its employees.

Threats Identified

Upon review of the current risk management plan, the following threats were identified:

 Loss of company data due to hardware being removed from production systems

 Loss of company information on lost or stolen company-owned assets, such as mobile devices and laptops

 Loss of customers due to production outages caused by various events, such as natural disasters, change

management, unstable software, and so on

 Internet threats due to company products being accessible on the Internet

 Insider threats

 Changes in regulatory landscape that may impact operations

Management Request

Senior management at Health Network has determined that the existing risk management plan for the organization is out

of date and a new risk management plan must be developed. Because of the importance of risk management to the

organization, senior management is committed to and supportive of the project to develop a new plan. You have been

assigned to develop this new plan.

Additional threats other than those described previously may be discovered when re-evaluating the current threat

landscape during the risk assessment phase.

The budget for this project has not been defined due to senior management’s desire to react to any and all material risks

that are identified within the new plan. Given the company’s annual revenue, reasonable expectations can be determined.

Project: Risk Management Plan

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Project Part 1 Task 1: Risk Management Plan

For the first part of the assigned project, you must create an initial draft of the final risk management plan. To do so, use

the template provided in class:

Evaluation Criteria and Rubrics

 Did the student demonstrate an understanding of the competencies covered in the course thus far?

 Did the student include all important components of a risk management plan in the outline?

 Did the student demonstrate good research, reasoning, and decision-making skills in identifying key components

and compliance laws and regulations?

 Did the student create a professional, well-developed draft with proper grammar, spelling, and punctuation?

Project Part 1 Task 2: Risk Assessment Plan

After creating an initial draft of the risk management plan, the second part of the assigned project requires you to create a

draft of the risk assessment (RA) plan. To do so, use the template provided in class:

Evaluation Criteria and Rubrics

 Did the student demonstrate an understanding of the competencies covered in the course relating to risk

assessments?

 Did the student include all important components of a RA plan in the outline?

 Did the student demonstrate good research, reasoning, and decision-making skills in identifying key components

and methodologies?

 Did the student create a professional, well-developed draft with proper grammar, spelling, and punctuation?

Project: Risk Management Plan

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Project Part 1 Task 3: Risk Mitigation Plan

Senior management at Health Network allocated funds to support a risk mitigation plan, and have requested that the risk

manager and team create a plan in response to the deliverables produced within the earlier phases of the project. The risk

mitigation plan should address the identified threats described in the scenario for this project, as well as any new threats

that may have been discovered during the risk assessment. You have been assigned to develop this new plan using the

template provided in class.

Evaluation Criteria and Rubrics

 Did the student develop a high-quality risk mitigation plan based on material provided in the course?

 Did the student use information obtained from the earlier parts of the project to build out a risk mitigation plan?

 Did the student create a professional, well-developed draft with proper grammar, spelling, and punctuation?

Project Part 2 Task 1: Business Impact Analysis (BIA) Plan

This part of the project is a continuation of Project Part 1 in which you prepared an RA plan and a risk mitigation plan for

Health Network. Senior management at the company has decided to allocate funds for a business impact analysis (BIA).

Because of the importance of risk management to the organization, senior management is committed to and supportive of

performing a BIA. You have been assigned to develop the BIA plan.

Evaluation Criteria and Rubrics

 Did the student complete a BIA plan based on inputs from the instructor regarding feedback on submitted work?

 Did the student include the primary objectives of a BIA: identify critical business functions, identify critical

resources, identify MAO and impact, and identify recovery objectives?

 Did the student create a professional, well-developed report with proper grammar, spelling, and punctuation?

Project: Risk Management Plan

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Project Part 2 Task 2: Business Continuity Plan (BCP)

After having reviewed and being impressed by your business impact analysis (BIA), senior management at Health

Network has decided that your team must also develop a BCP. Management has allocated all funds for a BCP and your

team has their full support, as well as permission to contact any of them directly for participation or inclusion in your BCP

plan. You have been assigned to develop this new plan.

Winter storms on the East Coast have affected the ability of Health Network employees to reach the Arlington offices in a

safe and timely manner. However, no BCP plan currently exists to address corporate operations. The Arlington office is

the primary location for business units, such as Finance, Legal, and Customer Support. Some of the corporate systems,

such as the payroll and accounting applications, are located only in the corporate offices. Each corporate location is able

to access the other two, and remote virtual private network (VPN) exist between each Production data center and the

corporate locations.

The corporate systems are not currently being backed up and should be addressed in the new plan. The BCP should also

include some details regarding how the BCP will be tested.

You may refer to the following additional resources to help you and your team develop a BCP, and you may use a BCP

template if found during your research.

References:

 Guide to Business Continuity Management: Frequently Asked Questions (Protiviti, 2013),

http://www.protiviti.com/en-US/Documents/Resource-Guides/Guide-to-BCM-Third-Edition-Protiviti.pdf

 Business Continuity Plan (Ready.gov), http://www.ready.gov/business/implementation/continuity

Evaluation Criteria and Rubrics  Did the student develop a BCP that could recover business operations while efforts are ongoing to restart

pervious operations?

 Did the student completely fill out a BCP template if found during their research?

 Did the student completely understand BCP concepts presented in class?

 Did the student develop a BCP test plan with correct processes?

 Did the student create a professional, well-developed report with proper grammar, spelling, and punctuation?

Project: Risk Management Plan

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Project Part 2 Task 3: Disaster Recovery Plan (DRP)

Your project on risk management, the BIA, and the BCP have been well received by senior management at Health

Network. They now want you to develop a DRP in order to overcome any mishaps that might occur in the future. You may

research and use National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) templates to develop a DRP plan for the

company.

Evaluation Criteria and Rubrics

 Did the student develop a DRP that could recover business operations while efforts are ongoing to restart

pervious operations?

 Did the student completely fill out the template found in their research?

 Did the student completely understand the DRP constructs presented in class?

 Did the student create a professional, well-developed report with proper grammar, spelling, and punctuation?

Project Part 2 Task 4: Computer Incident Response Team (CIRT) Plan

By now you should have developed an RA, a risk mitigation plan, and a BIA, BCP, and DRP.

In this part of the project, you will create a CIRT plan for Health Network. The company headquarters (HQ) handles all

incidents because the information security organization is located in Minneapolis, so the plan will have its roots at HQ.

Make sure to incorporate your instructor’s feedback on earlier submissions if applicable to the CIRT plan.

Evaluation Criteria and Rubrics

 Did the student consider the inputs provided in their earlier submissions?

 Did the student develop a sound CIRT plan?

 Did the student create a professional, well-developed report with proper grammar, spelling, and punctuation?