Security Risk Assessments

Achieve Compliance with a Security Risk Assessment

HALOCK’s cybersecurity risk assessment method is based on the Duty of Care Risk Analysis Standard (DoCRA). This method helps organizations determine whether they apply safeguards that appropriately protect others from harm while presenting a reasonable burden to themselves. This method helps establish if an organization has practiced “due care” in implementing its risk strategy.

HALOCK guides clients through a complete risk assessment for cybersecurity so they can identify what parts of their organizations they must prioritize to address compliance, social responsibility, and security. HALOCK’s risk assessment method also conforms to ISO 27005 and NIST 800-30 to ensure that all requirements for risk assessments are fully met.

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HALOCK’s security risk assessment services help organizations achieve the following benefits:

• Information security investments are measurably “reasonable and appropriate” as required by regulations and statutes.
• Information, systems, processes, people, and facilities that can create risk are identified and assessed.
• Risks are prioritized, in part, by the impact that a threat has on the organization and its responsibilities.
• Information risks are considered in terms of the business mission and objectives, as well as the organization’s responsibilities to its customers — providing a unified view of risk in line with HALOCK’s Purpose Driven Security® approach.

Implement the Appropriate Controls with Risk Treatment

How do you know if your security controls are reasonable? Security risk assessments bring to management’s attention what could go wrong. But those risks remain a liability unless “reasonable and appropriate” security controls are established to protect that information, and those controls remain active. That’s where an effective IT risk treatment plan comes in.

Risk treatment is the process of implementing the appropriate information security controls. Using formalized risk management and cyber threat assessment processes, HALOCK helps you determine the appropriate level of risk treatment that is consistent with common laws, regulations, and standards. In addition, HALOCK’s security engineers work closely with your staff to assist in implementing the appropriate technical solutions to help you achieve your compliance goals.

Achieve and Maintain Compliance with Our Risk Management Process

Compliance is not a point-in-time achievement. It is a duty of care process that operates and evolves over time. To achieve ongoing due diligence, the process of risk management must be applied; this involves monitoring security controls and correcting them when they are ineffective at reducing risk.

HALOCK helps you establish the processes for monitoring and addressing risks to your organization. Our security risk management process ensures that risk owners are accomplishing their assigned tasks, while also providing easily maintained metrics to demonstrate that security and compliance investments are “reasonable and appropriate.” Based on ISO 27001 and NIST 800-30, HALOCK’s cyber security risk assessment and management methods are practical and scalable — and are easily applied in most organizations regardless of size or complexity.

Benefits of HALOCK’s enterprise risk management approach:

• Facilitates “buy in” across IT, legal, financial and audit functions on what the risks are and where financial investments should be made
• Quantifies risk in terms that senior management collectively defines
• Supports collaboration among senior management to focus on risks that matter to the organization, and alerts management when risks increase to unacceptable levels
• Supports collaboration among audit, operations and compliance functions to ensure that internal oversight is based on commonly defined “reasonable and appropriate” compliance and security goals
• Ensures that risk assessments are addressed and updated on an ongoing basis, rather than by conducting challenging annual assessments
• Drives managers who own risks toward security and compliance behaviors using measurable topics
• Links security and compliance performance to “reasonable and appropriate” metrics
• Demonstrates due care through a “Process Book” that organizes and records regular oversight by management
• Develops metrics for current-state and future-state risk treatment to chart progress over time

Define your reasonable security controls and acceptable responses with a complete cybersecurity risk assessment from HALOCK. Learn about our comprehensive approach to risk with our Risk Management Program.

“The team worked well together and delivered a very detailed assessment.”

– CISO, Technology and Managed Service Provider

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Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) on Reasonable Security

What Is Reasonable Security?

Reasonable Security is appropriate cybersecurity protection for your organization. Based on your size, data types, and risk profile, reasonable security can be a legal standard of care and a cybersecurity best practice, both of which show that you took defensible steps to protect information.

Why is “Reasonable” Security Important?

“Reasonable security” language is found in most state and federal privacy laws, and regulators have ruled that you must show you took “reasonable” steps to protect sensitive information.

Reasonable security does not mean perfect security, but rather security that makes sense based on your risks and resources.

Organizations with reasonable security:

• Have a better chance of avoiding regulatory action after a breach
• Are better positioned during litigation and investigations
• Have more support from cyber insurance carriers and adjusters
• Instill more confidence with clients, partners, and stakeholders

What Laws Reference “Reasonable Security”?

In the United States, a variety of state and federal laws require organizations to have “reasonable security practices and procedures.” These include, but are not limited to:

• California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA / CPRA)
• New York SHIELD Act
• Illinois Personal Information Protection Act (PIPA)
• Massachusetts 201 CMR 17.00
• Connecticut Data Privacy Act
• Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (GLBA)
• Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Safeguards Rule
• General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) – references “appropriate technical and organizational measures”

The laws do not specify exactly what controls you should use, but they do typically require some defensible evidence that you assessed and mitigated risk appropriately.

How Do You Demonstrate Reasonable Security?

The most effective way is through a documented, risk-based assessment process that allows you to show how your organization identifies, prioritizes, and mitigates risks.

A legally defensible risk assessment provides a fact-based argument that your actions were prudent, informed, and proportionate.

Key elements include:

1. Risk identification: What data, systems, and processes are impacted?
2. Threat and vulnerability analysis: What risks are credible and foreseeable?
3. Impact assessment: What could cause harm to customers, partners, or operations?
4. Control evaluation: What safeguards are reasonable under current conditions?
5. Documentation: Written records of your findings, decisions, and mitigations.

Security and legal frameworks such as NIST SP 800-30, ISO 27005, CIS Controls, and DoCRA (Duty of Care Risk Analysis) can help define and prove what “reasonable” looks like in practice.

What Is the Duty of Care Risk Analysis (DoCRA)?

The Duty of Care Risk Analysis (DoCRA) standard is an approach to establish and document reasonable security for an organization. It states that reasonable security is:

“Security that balances the interests of the organization with the interests of others who may be harmed if security fails.”

DoCRA helps organizations to review and justify risk decisions, not only from a compliance point of view but also with respect to fairness, proportionality, and legal defensibility. In essence, it considers an organization’s mission, objectives, and obligations. It effectively bridges security, business, and legal aspects in one defensible framework.

How HALOCK Helps Organizations Demonstrate Reasonable Security

HALOCK offers cybersecurity assessments that are risk-based, legally defensible, and aligned with the Duty of Care Risk Analysis (DoCRA) standard.

HALOCK assessment helps you to:

• Identify, quantify, and prioritize cyber risks
• Select and balance controls with business impact
• Document a reasonable security posture for regulators, courts, and clients
• Establish an accountability and continuous improvement process

How Can You Define “Reasonable Security”?

Reasonable security means implementing safeguards that are:

Appropriate: Based on your business size, industry, and data sensitivity

Proportionate: Controls balance protection with business practicality

Recognized: Align with accepted frameworks (NIST, ISO 27001, CIS, DoCRA)

Documented: You can prove decisions, policies, and risk management actions

Adaptive: Regularly reassessed as technology, threats, and operations evolve