[Reading time: 2 minutes]
Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall
All the king’s horses
And all the king’s men
Couldn’t put Humpty together again
What does this tell us about risk management in the kingdom?
Humpty was an egg that had arms and legs, and he was clearly a risk taker.
Did no-one think about managing the risk of Humpty climbing a wall and then falling off?
What does this tell us about incident response planning in the kingdom?
Either they had no incident response plan or their plan for an incident involving an egg falling off a wall was to send horses and soldiers to the scene.
No medics. No glue. No spoon for the cleanup.
Poor Humpty never stood a chance.
What can we learn from this sorry tale?
1 – You can’t protect everything: Think about the valuable eggs in your kingdom
e.g. The firm’s bank accounts
2 – Scenario planning: Identify the most likely ways that these valuable eggs could be damaged
e.g. Money gets transferred from the firm’s bank account to a fraudster
3 – Risk management: Identify ways to reduce the likelihood of these bad things happening
– e.g. Staff trained so they are aware of how a fraudster will target them; Clear procedures so there is no single point of weakness
4 – Incident response planning: Identify the actions that would be taken to reduce the impact if the bad thing did happen
-e.g. Financial control to spot an unusual transaction quickly; Documented procedures to contact banks and Gardai
5 – Business continuity planning: Identify how the firm could continue to operate despite this bad thing happening
e.g. insurance cover so the financial loss is minimised;