Knowledge What Is a Security Assessment? Explaining Its Purpose, Evaluation Items, and Concrete Process

A security assessment is a comprehensive process in which a company or organization identifies, analyzes, and evaluates various risks related to its security policies, governance structure, employee training, information assets, and third-party vendors, and objectively determines whether its current security measures are functioning effectively.

It may be easiest to think of a security assessment as a health checkup for a company’s security, similar to a comprehensive medical exam.

Just as a health checkup aims to detect signs of illnesses with no noticeable symptoms and to encourage improvements in lifestyle habits, a security assessment aims to uncover security vulnerabilities and latent risks that have not yet surfaced, and to clarify where and what kinds of countermeasures should be implemented.

Why are security assessments indispensable for so many companies? There are three main reasons.

When you are busy with day‑to‑day operations, you rarely have the opportunity to objectively review your own security measures. By conducting an assessment, you can use a third‑party expert perspective and systematic frameworks to comprehensively identify configuration flaws and missing measures against new threats that your own organization may have overlooked.

While you could theoretically spend unlimited amounts on security measures, corporate budgets are finite. Through an assessment, you can objectively evaluate the magnitude of each risk (likelihood of occurrence and impact), which clarifies where the greatest risks lie. This enables you to prioritize limited budgets on areas where countermeasures will be most effective.

The results of an assessment become a highly reliable report that presents your company’s security level using objective indicators. This makes it easier to logically explain to management why certain security investments are necessary and to secure budget. In an era where the security of the entire supply chain is under scrutiny, assessments are also an effective means of demonstrating your security posture to business partners.

“Risk assessment” and “vulnerability assessment” are terms often mentioned alongside security assessment. Let’s clarify the differences.

In simple terms, risk assessment is a process contained within the broader framework of security assessment, and vulnerability assessment is one of the specific methods used to analyze those risks.

Security assessments evaluate not only technical aspects but also organizational structures and rules from multiple perspectives. In general, they focus on the following three viewpoints.

Measures that protect information assets from physical threats (such as theft and disasters) are evaluated. Examples include access control to server rooms, installation of surveillance cameras, lock management, and disaster‑prevention equipment.

Measures that protect against technical threats such as cyberattacks are evaluated. This includes the implementation status of firewalls and antivirus software, access control mechanisms, data encryption, and network monitoring systems.

Rules and organizational structures are evaluated, such as the status of information security policies, security training for employees, incident response structures (such as CSIRT), and management systems for subcontractors.

Security assessments are generally carried out in the following five steps.

First, clearly define “what” and “to what extent” will be evaluated. Depending on the purpose and budget of the assessment, you decide whether to target the entire corporate IT infrastructure or limit it to something like a newly introduced accounting system.

List all information assets within the evaluation scope (such as customer information databases, financial data, servers, and network devices). Then classify each information asset according to its level of importance in terms of confidentiality, integrity, and availability.

For each identified information asset, determine what threats exist (such as unauthorized access, malware infection, or loss) and what vulnerabilities are present (such as outdated OS versions or simple passwords).

Analyze each identified risk using matrices or similar methods in terms of the impact on the business if it materializes and the likelihood of its occurrence, and then determine the priority (e.g., high, medium, low) of each risk.

Based on the evaluation results, consider specific countermeasures, prioritizing those risks evaluated as “high.” There are four basic options for responses:

• Risk reduction (introducing or strengthening security measures) 
• Risk retention (accepting the risk) 
• Risk avoidance (discontinuing the activities that cause the risk) 
• Risk transfer (such as taking out cyber insurance)

Conducting a security assessment in an ad‑hoc, self‑defined way is difficult. Domestic and international expert organizations have published various frameworks and guidelines as highly reliable evaluation standards. Using these makes comprehensive and objective evaluation possible.

Related article: How do you strengthen IT governance at overseas locations? Expanding KDDI networks across the globe to comprehensively support the IT governance in and outside Japan

Reference: Information Security Audit System (METI) (Japanese Only)

A security assessment is not something you conduct once and then forget. Because business environments and methods of cyberattack are constantly evolving, your company’s security risks also change over time.

What matters is to conduct assessments regularly, continually review your security posture, and operate a PDCA cycle for ongoing improvement. Planned security measures based on objective evaluation form the foundation that supports sustainable corporate growth in a rapidly changing era.

Even if you understand the importance of security assessments, it is not easy to perform an objective and comprehensive evaluation using only in‑house resources. Leveraging third‑party experts is the first step toward effective risk management.

KDDI offers a “Security Assessment Service” in which experts diagnose and evaluate the vulnerabilities lurking in your systems. Based on international standard frameworks, we visualize your security risks and propose concrete improvement measures. For more details, please see the link below.