Operational Risk
Assessments
A clear-eyed view of where your organization is exposed (and what to do about it).
Overview
Operational risk doesn't live only in your IT department. It spans your people, processes, technology, and the intersections between them. Our annual assessments give leadership a comprehensive, honest picture of where risk exists across the organization (and a prioritized roadmap to address it).
I've walked into organizations where IT had known about a critical vulnerability for months, but leadership hadn't heard about it. Not because anyone was hiding it, but because there was no structured process to surface it. By the time it came up, the window to act quietly had already closed.
People & Process Review
We evaluate your organizational structure, roles and responsibilities, security awareness, and operational workflows to identify where human factors introduce risk.
Technology & Controls Assessment
We review your technology environment, security controls, and configurations against current best practices to identify vulnerabilities and coverage gaps.
Risk Prioritization & Roadmap
Not all risks are equal. We prioritize findings by likelihood and business impact, giving your leadership a clear, defensible roadmap for remediation investment.
You can't manage what you can't see. An operational risk assessment gives you the full picture (before someone else finds the gaps).
What You Can Expect
- Structured interviews with key stakeholders across IT, operations, and leadership
- Review of existing controls, configurations, and documentation
- Risk register documenting identified risks by category and severity
- Prioritized remediation roadmap with recommended timelines
- Executive summary suitable for board presentation or regulatory review
Mid-audit and things have stalled? If a SOC 2 engagement with another consultant has gone quiet, SOC 2 Rescue is a flat-fee engagement to step in, assess the situation, and get things moving again.
Who This Is For
- Executive teams and boards that need a current, honest picture of the organization's cybersecurity exposure
- Organizations preparing for regulatory examinations (NCUA, FDIC, state-level regulators)
- Companies building or maturing a formal information security program
- IT and security leaders who need to justify security investment decisions to leadership with documented evidence
- Organizations that have grown through acquisition and need to assess inherited risk across people, processes, and technology
Common Questions
How is an operational risk assessment different from a vulnerability scan or penetration test?
A vulnerability scan identifies known technical weaknesses in your systems. A penetration test attempts to exploit them. An operational risk assessment is broader — it evaluates people, processes, and technology together to identify where risk exists across the whole organization. That includes governance gaps, training deficiencies, process failures, and vendor risks that no technical scan would surface. Most mature security programs need all three.
What does a cybersecurity risk register include?
A risk register documents each identified risk by category (technical, operational, human, vendor), likelihood of occurrence, potential business impact, and current control status. It gives leadership a structured view of the organization's risk landscape and is the foundation for defensible investment decisions. It is also the kind of documentation regulators and auditors expect to see when assessing your security program maturity.
How often should we conduct an operational risk assessment?
Annual assessments reflect industry best practice and are required or recommended by most frameworks including NIST CSF, ISO 27001, and HIPAA. Assessments should also be triggered by significant changes: a major system migration, an acquisition, significant staff turnover in security roles, or a regulatory finding. A point-in-time assessment can become outdated quickly in a changing environment.