Overview#
Risk that remains after controls are applied. Documented in risk registers with owners, acceptance decisions, and review timelines.
Core objectives#
- Establish shared definitions of Residual Risk for security, engineering, and leadership teams.
- Connect Residual Risk activities to measurable risk reduction and resilience goals.
- Provide onboarding notes so new team members can quickly understand how Residual Risk works here.
Implementation notes#
- Identify the primary owner for Residual Risk, the data sources involved, and the systems affected.
- Document the minimum viable process, tooling, and runbooks that keep Residual Risk healthy.
- Map Residual Risk practices to standards such as ISO/IEC 27001, NIST CSF, or CIS Controls.
Operational signals#
- Leading indicators: early warnings that Residual Risk might degrade (e.g., backlog growth, noisy alerts, or missed SLAs).
- Lagging indicators: realized impact that shows Residual Risk failed or needs investment (e.g., incidents, audit findings).
- Feedback loops: retrospectives and metrics reviews that tune Residual Risk continuously.
Related practices#
- Align Residual Risk with defense-in-depth planning, threat modeling, and disaster recovery tests.
- Communicate updates to stakeholders through concise briefs, dashboards, and internal FAQs.
- Pair Residual Risk improvements with tabletop exercises to validate expectations.