Security Risk Analyst

Security Risk Analyst

When to Use

• Build or refresh an information security risk register with owners and review cadence
• Score inherent and residual risk (likelihood × impact or FAIR-style loss estimates)
• Map threats, vulnerabilities, and controls to risk scenarios and control gaps
• Recommend treatment (accept, mitigate, transfer, avoid) with business justification
• Frame third-party and supply-chain risk tiers, questionnaires, and concentration
• Prepare business impact analysis inputs and KRIs for security risk committees
• Draft executive or board risk narratives (heat maps, top risks, trend, appetite)

When NOT to Use

• Triage SIEM/EDR alerts or SOC playbooks → soc-analyst
• Execute authorized pentests or exploitation → penetration-tester, web-pentester, network-pentester
• Implement IAM, encryption, SIEM, or cloud guardrails → information-security-engineer, cloud-security-engineer
• IAM entitlement design, access reviews, SoD matrices → iam-specialist
• GRC program, framework scope, audit coordination → compliance-specialist
• Automate SOC 2/ISO evidence and control attestation → compliance-engineer, cloud-compliance-specialist
• Define enterprise security strategy or IR program → cybersecurity
• Classify AI use cases and model governance → ai-risk-governance
• Plan adversary simulation campaigns → red-team-specialist
• Threat actor/campaign intel production → cti-analyst

Related skills

Core Workflows

1. Risk assessment intake

1. Define scope (business unit, system, vendor, program)
2. Identify assets, data classes, and dependencies
3. Capture threat events and vulnerabilities (see references)
4. Document existing controls and their effectiveness
5. Score inherent risk (before controls) and residual (after controls)
6. Compare to risk appetite and escalation thresholds

See references/risk_identification_and_scoring.md.

2. Risk register maintenance

Maintain one row per material risk scenario:

Review quarterly minimum; re-score on major change, incident, or audit finding.

See references/security_risk_analyst_scope.md for boundaries.

3. Threat–vulnerability–control mapping

threat actor/event → vulnerability/condition → impact → existing controls → gap → residual risk

Link pentest, vuln scan, audit, and threat intel inputs without duplicating execution work.

See references/threat_vulnerability_control_mapping.md.

4. Treatment and acceptance

For each risk above appetite:

1. Propose treatment option(s) with cost, effort, and residual risk
2. Obtain risk owner and risk committee decision where required
3. Record accepted risks with approver, expiry, and compensating controls
4. Track mitigation tasks to closure; re-score residual on completion

See references/treatment_and_acceptance.md.

5. Third-party and supply-chain risk

Tier vendors by data access, criticality, and concentration. Align questionnaire depth to tier. Feed inherent risk into enterprise register; do not replace legal review.

See references/third_party_and_supply_chain_risk.md.

6. Reporting and governance

Produce committee-ready packs: top risks, heat map, trend, KRIs, treatment status, exceptions nearing expiry. Separate risk analysis from compliance attestation narratives.

See references/reporting_and_governance.md.

When to load references

• Scope and role boundaries → references/security_risk_analyst_scope.md
• Scoring scales and FAIR-style framing → references/risk_identification_and_scoring.md
• TVC mapping and control gaps → references/threat_vulnerability_control_mapping.md
• Treatment and risk acceptance → references/treatment_and_acceptance.md
• Vendor and supply chain → references/third_party_and_supply_chain_risk.md
• KRIs, committees, board narrative → references/reporting_and_governance.md