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Risk register first pass

Use this skill when a team needs its first information security risk register, or has one that is a copied catalogue nobody owns, and asks "build our risk register", "draft a risk assessment", "what are our top risks", "risk register from scratch", "our auditor wants a risk assessment" or "turn our incidents and findings into risks". Drafts 20 to 40 company-specific risk scenarios from the material the agent can reach, scores them against an agreed method, proposes owners and treatments, and writes a CSV register plus a notes file of assumptions and questions for owners.

RiskISO 27001SOC 2NIS 2DORAGeneral

Use this when there is no register, or when the register is a generic list that would fit any company. You get two files in a new folder, ./risk-register-first-pass/: a spreadsheet you can open in Excel listing 20 to 40 risks specific to the company, each with an owner, scores and a proposed treatment (risk-register.csv), and a short notes document with the scoring rules, the reasoning behind the top scores and the questions for each owner (risk-notes.md). This skill drafts for a human to review and sign; this skill never marks a control effective. Risk acceptance is a decision for named owners, never for the agent.

Inputs to gather

Read what exists before asking anything: the scope statement, the asset or service inventory, the architecture overview, the vendor list, incident and near-miss logs, previous audit or penetration test findings, customer security questionnaires the company has answered, and the policies. Then ask the reader, in one message: what would hurt the company most in the next year (lost data, downtime, a failed audit, a lost customer, a fine), which three suppliers they could not run without, and who signs off on spending.

Step 1: agree the method before scoring

If the company already has a risk method, use it as written and note where it is vague. If not, draft a minimal one in the notes document (risk-notes.md) and get the reader's yes before scoring:

  • Likelihood 1 to 5, each level anchored to a frequency the team can recognise (1 = not expected in five years, 3 = about once a year, 5 = several times a year).
  • Impact 1 to 5, each level anchored to the company's own numbers: revenue or contract value at risk, hours of downtime, number of people whose data is involved, regulatory exposure.
  • Risk score = likelihood x impact. An acceptance threshold the leadership agrees, for example 8 or below may be accepted by the owner, above 8 needs a treatment plan or a recorded leadership decision. State the acceptance criteria in words too (what makes a retained risk tolerable, which impact dimension dominates) and mark them for leadership approval.
  • Reassessment: the full register every 12 months, and a targeted pass after a major incident, a new critical supplier or a scope change.

Anchors in money and hours are what make two people score the same risk the same way. A method without anchors produces a register where everything is a 3.

Step 2: draft scenarios, not topics

Write each risk as one sentence: "If <threat> exploits <weakness> in <asset or process>, then <consequence for this company>." Source them from the material, in this order: incidents and near misses (they already happened), audit and test findings, single points of failure in the architecture and supplier list, people and process gaps (joiners and leavers, shared accounts, one engineer who knows the backups), then legal and contractual exposure. Add at least one scenario from a current threat source (a sector advisory, a vendor's security bulletin), cited, so the register is not built only from the past. Aim for 20 to 40 risks for a company of 20 to 300 people. Merge duplicates; split a risk when two parts have different owners.

For each risk, fill a row of the risk spreadsheet (risk-register.csv): id, scenario, asset or process, owner role, existing controls with the path to evidence that they run, inherent likelihood and impact, residual likelihood and impact after existing controls, proposed treatment (reduce, avoid, transfer, accept), proposed action, whether the action adds or changes a control (so the applicability statement can follow) and a review cadence. Mark every existing control without evidence as "claimed, not evidenced"; the residual score assumes it does not work until someone shows it does. Where a framework expects specific risk criteria or links to a control set, run a framework lookup instead of guessing.

Step 4: sanity checks before handing over

  • Look at the score distribution. If more than half the risks share one score, the anchors are not being used; rescore the cluster with the reader.
  • Check every owner role is someone who can approve money or change a process, not "IT" or "security" by default.
  • Check the top five against the reader's answer about what would hurt most. If they do not overlap, one of them is wrong; ask which.
  • List open questions per owner in risk-notes.md, so the review meeting is a series of decisions, not a reading session. End the notes with an empty approval block (owner roles, date, decisions taken) so the first pass closes with a recorded sign-off.

What good looks like

  • A stranger reading the register can tell which company it belongs to. "Malware" is a topic; "a contractor laptop without disk encryption is lost with the customer export on it" is a risk.
  • Scores trace back to anchors, and the reasoning for the top ten fits on one line each in the notes.
  • Existing controls point to evidence. The common mistake is to list every policy as a control and drive every residual score to low; auditors and attackers both see through that.
  • Owners are business people with budget, and each has fewer than ten risks; one person owning the whole register means nobody owns it.
  • The register is small enough to review in one meeting and specific enough that the first treatment actions can be ticketed the same day.

Framework lookups

If ISMS Copilot is connected to your agent (MCP server https://account.ismscopilot.com/v1/account/mcp), ask it the framework question with create_conversation (mode think, answer_format: decision) and keep one conversation for this task. Send only a short question in your own words, show it to the user first, and never include file contents, secrets, personal data or evidence. If it is not connected, check the official text of the framework yourself; this skill does not restate it. Set it up: https://www.ismscopilot.com/mcp?ref=grcskills-risk-register-first-pass

Rules

  • MUST agree the scoring method with the reader before scoring any risk.
  • MUST cite the source document or answer behind every scenario.
  • MUST write outputs only inside ./risk-register-first-pass/ and ask before overwriting.
  • NEVER accept a risk on the owner's behalf or record a risk as accepted without a named human decision.
  • NEVER copy a generic threat catalogue in place of company-specific scenarios.
  • NEVER put personal data of individuals into the register; use roles.
  • NEVER change a system, account, ticket or document to treat a risk; propose the treatment and let its owner act.