A risk treatment plan typically includes the following elements2:
Risk description: A brief summary of the risk, its causes, and its consequences.
Risk owner: The person or entity who is responsible for managing the risk and implementing the risk treatment plan.
Risk response: The strategy or method chosen to deal with the risk, such as avoid, reduce, transfer, or accept.
Risk actions: The specific tasks or steps that need to be performed to execute the risk response.
Risk resources: The human, financial, technical, or other resources that are required or available to support the risk actions.
Risk timeline: The schedule or deadline for completing the risk actions and achieving the desired risk level.
By recommending a risk treatment plan, the risk practitioner can help the organization to:
Analyze and prioritize the vulnerabilities detected on the systems, and determine their impact and likelihood.
Evaluate and compare the possible risk responses, and select the most suitable and feasible one for each vulnerability.
Define and assign the roles and responsibilities for the risk treatment process, and ensure the accountability and collaboration of the stakeholders.
Monitor and measure the progress and effectiveness of the risk treatment process, and report the results and outcomes to the management.
The other options are not the best course of action, because:
Recommending the business change the application is not a realistic or practical option, as it may be costly, time-consuming, or technically challenging to modify the application to make it compatible with the updated servers. It may also create other issues or risks, such as compatibility problems with other systems, performance degradation, or user dissatisfaction.
Including the risk in the next quarterly update to management is not a proactive or timely option, as it may delay or defer the risk treatment process and increase the exposure or vulnerability of the systems. It may also indicate a lack of urgency or importance of the risk, and undermine the credibility or trust of the management.
Implementing compensating controls is not a sufficient or comprehensive option, as it may not address the root cause or the source of the risk. Compensating controls are alternative or additionalcontrols that are implemented when the primary or preferred controls are not feasible or effective3. They may reduce the impact or likelihood of the risk, but they may not eliminate or resolve the risk.
References =
Risk Treatment Plan - CIO Wiki
Risk Treatment Plan Template - ISACA
Compensating Control - CIO Wiki
