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- ⚙️ Risk Registers Reimagined: From Static Inventories to Action Engines
⚙️ Risk Registers Reimagined: From Static Inventories to Action Engines
Moving Beyond Static and Outdated Data Stores to Drive Actual Security Improvements
Ayoub Fandi
April 17, 2025
"Your risk register is growing, but your security isn't improving."
This frustrating reality plagues security teams everywhere.
Beautiful risk heat maps impress the board while engineers remain unaware they even exist. Perfect risk descriptions sit in spreadsheets while the vulnerabilities they document live on in production.
The cycle is depressingly familiar:
Identify a risk
Document it meticulously
Rate it "High" or "Critical"
Watch it age like cheese in your register
Generate impressive charts for quarterly leadership meetings
Repeat until retirement
Meanwhile, the actual security issues remain unfixed because your risk register exists in a parallel universe to your engineering reality.
It's time to transform your risk register from a documentation exercise into an action engine
IN PARTNERSHIP WITH
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Why It Matters 🔍
The why: the core problem this solves and why you should care
Your risk register isn't a security control - it's a communication tool. Yet most organisations treat it as the former while failing at the latter.
When your risk data lives disconnected from the systems used to fix issues, you're creating what I call the "risk-remediation gap". It’s the dangerous space between identifying problems and actually working towards solving them.
This gap doesn't just waste resources - it creates a false sense of security that can be more dangerous than ignorance. Your comprehensive documentation convinces leadership that risks are "managed" when they're merely "documented."
The business reality is stark: Engineers ship features while documented risks remain theoretical problems that never become practical priorities. Your organisation continues to operate with known vulnerabilities because the people who can fix them either don't know they exist or don't understand why they matter.
Bridging this gap isn't just about efficiency - it's about actually reducing risk instead of just documenting it.
{
"traditional_risk_register": {
"risk": {
"id": "R-123",
"title": "Critical data exposure",
"owner": "¯\\_(ツ)_/¯",
"status": "Accepted (3 years ago)",
"action": "We'll fix it next quarter™",
"priority": "Critical!! 🔥🔥🔥 (but not really)"
},
"note": "Where risks go to hibernate"
},
"what_engineers_actually_need": {
"ticket": {
"title": "Fix this S3 bucket NOW",
"steps": "aws s3api put-bucket-acl --bucket prod --acl private",
"priority": "Do it before lunch",
"reality": "Will be done after next feature release"
}
}
}
Strategic Framework 🧩
The what: The conceptual approach broken down into 3 main principles
You
Them
Connect Business and Technical Risk Languages
Traditional risk registers speak a language completely foreign to the people who need to fix the problems. They're filled with "impact to the business," "risk scenarios," and other concepts that don't translate to actionable work.
Effective risk registers build a bridge between business and technical languages. They maintain the business context needed for prioritisation while providing the technical specificity needed for remediation.
This translation layer is what enables risks to move from documentation to action. When "unauthorised access risk" becomes "excessive S3 bucket permissions," engineers suddenly understand what needs fixing.
Design for Decision Support, Not Documentation
Most risk registers are designed as documentation repositories, optimised for evidence collection and audit trails. While those are necessary, they're not sufficient.
Action-oriented risk registers are designed primarily as decision support tools. They answer critical questions like:
Which risks should we fix first?
Who needs to be involved in remediation?
What's the most efficient way to reduce our overall risk?
How do we know when we've actually improved?
By focusing on the decisions that drive risk reduction rather than just documenting what exists, your register becomes a powerful tool for security improvement rather than a compliance artefact.
Create Direct Paths to Remediation Workflows
The most sophisticated risk analysis is worthless if it doesn't lead to actual fixes. Action-oriented risk registers build direct connections to the workflow systems used by the people who implement controls and fix vulnerabilities.
These connections don't need to be complex API integrations (though those help). Even simple practices like standardised risk-to-ticket templates and consistent tagging strategies can dramatically improve how risk information flows to remediation teams.
When your risk register directly feeds engineering backlog prioritisation, you've transformed documentation into action.
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Execution Blueprint 🛠️
The how: 3 practical steps to put this strategy into action at your organisation
Why your risk register doesn’t help
Establish Clear Risk Ownership
Before building fancy models or integrations, solve the ownership problem that kills most risk programs:
For each risk category: Identify a single, accountable business owner with authority to make decisions
Create an ownership RACI clarifying who's Responsible for fixes vs. who's Accountable for decisions
Focus on outcomes, not blame - ownership isn't about fault, it's about driving improvement
Start small: If you're struggling with ownership, begin with your top 5-10 risks rather than trying to assign every item in your backlog. Without clear ownership, your risk register becomes a document that no one feels responsible for addressing.
Pro tip: Recognise that risk owners need resources to succeed. Make sure you're connecting ownership to resource allocation - there's nothing more demoralising than being assigned responsibility for a risk without the authority or resources to address it.
Create a Two-Level Risk Translation Layer
Most organisations have multiple risk registers that don't connect. Bridge this gap with a simple two-level approach:
Level 1: Business Risk Registry (What executives care about)
"Unauthorised access to customer data"
"Service disruption exceeding RTO"
"Compliance violations resulting in penalties"
Level 2: Technical Risk Registry (What engineers can fix)
"Public S3 bucket with PII"
"Missing redundancy in critical payment service"
"Insufficient password controls in customer portal"
Start with a spreadsheet: Don't wait for perfect tooling. A simple spreadsheet with two tabs and linking columns can create this model today. Speed matters more than perfection - the goal should be to get to the response phase as fast as possible.
For each technical risk, include:
Direct link to parent business risk
Clear owner
Specific remediation steps
Estimated effort (in hours/days, not colours)
Estimated business impact (in metrics leadership cares about)
Connect to Existing Workflows
"Risk Acceptance Theatre" happens when items are pushed to "next sprint" and eventually forgotten. Combat this by embedding risk directly into existing work processes:
For engineering teams:
Create standardised ticket templates that include risk context
Add risk tags to existing backlog items
Schedule dedicated remediation time in each sprint (even just 10%)
For leadership:
Include risk metrics in existing business reviews, not separate meetings
Connect risk reduction to performance goals for all leaders
Provide funding models that match your risk appetite statements
Start with manual processes: Begin with a simple manual process where someone from GRC regularly syncs with engineering to ensure prioritised risks are addressed. No need for API integration to start seeing results.
That person can be your "human API" - translating between security and engineering, ensuring follow-through, and maintaining momentum.
They're not just measuring risk - they're actively driving remediation. That’s a key part of what GRC Engineering is all about.
Remember: Consider having a dedicated role that bridges GRC and engineering. The most effective risk registers have humans, not just systems, connecting documentation to action.
Are you interested in a GRC Market Pulse entry once a month?It would be focused on news on the market, new features dropped and some insights on where the industry is going |
Content Queue 📖
The learn: This week's resource to dive deeper on the topic
In this LinkedIn Learning Course, GRC for the Cloud-Native Revolution, I’ve walked through how to think about assessing risks in a more Agile Way for suited for the DevOps approach.
We also talk through a demo of the Rapid Risk Assessment method created by Mozilla as a way to get started towards a more agile risk program. Check it out!
That’s all for this week’s issue, folks!
If you enjoyed it, you might also enjoy:
My spicier takes on LinkedIn [/in/ayoubfandi]
Listening to the GRC Engineering Podcast
See you next week!
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