alphaPlan · Cybersecurity · Cheat-sheet 08
Prioritising Risk
Turn a worried list into a plan: score by Impact × Likelihood, do the critical few habits first, and look where weak spots cluster.
Ideas to remember
- 01Priority = Impact × Likelihood, scored roughly from 1 to 5 each, gives a ranking from 1 to 25; the ranking is the goal, not the exact figure.
- 02Work down from the highest score, and do not chase the bottom of the list while the top is unaddressed.
- 03A few habits stop most incidents: MFA, updates, tested backups, confirmation on a separate trusted channel, and unique passwords.
- 04Attackers overwhelmingly rely on ordinary gaps: no MFA, an unpatched device, a reused password, a request nobody confirmed.
- 05Weaknesses cluster in four places: people, reused passwords, unpatched software and third parties.
- 06One old leak of a reused password can unlock your email, shopping and work account without any new hack.
Words
- Impact
- How bad it would be if the thing happened, from a minor annoyance (1) to a serious loss (5).
- Likelihood
- How probable it is, from very unlikely (1) to almost expected (5).
- Priority
- Impact multiplied by likelihood, which puts very different problems on one comparable scale.
- The critical few
- The small set of habits that prevents the large majority of everyday incidents.
- Third parties
- The suppliers, apps and services you connect to, whose weakness can become your problem.
Do this
- Write your own short list of concerns and score each one by Impact × Likelihood.
- Pick the top item you have not done yet, turning on MFA for your email is a strong first move, finish it today, then take the next.
- Keep at least one backup copy that is not connected to the device it protects.
- Remove access for apps and accounts you no longer use.
- Ask four questions: are people set up to act too quickly, are passwords reused, is software out of date, and who else has access to what matters?
Watch out
- Fixing whatever you noticed last, or whatever feels scariest in the moment, instead of the highest score.
- Chasing rare, sophisticated threats while the ordinary gaps stay open.
- The old computer still running software that no longer receives fixes at all.
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