What is the first step in a risk analysis?

• A. Assessing potential impacts
• B. Monitoring risk
• C. Identifying the threats and the vulnerabilities
• D. Implementing controls

Answer: (C)

Identifying the threats and the vulnerabilities is the starting point because you can’t measure or manage risk without knowing what could go wrong and where the weaknesses lie. Until you name the potential attackers, events, or failures, and pinpoint weaknesses in the system, there’s no foundation for evaluating how serious a risk is or what should be done about it.

Once you’ve mapped out what could happen and where the gaps are, you can move on to estimating the potential impacts if those threats were realized. That step shapes priority—what needs fixing first and how aggressively. After that comes monitoring risk over time and adjusting as conditions change, and then implementing controls to reduce the identified risk.

In a practical alarm system context, you’d start by listing possible threats (break-ins, tampering, power or communication failures) and vulnerabilities (weak sensor placement, outdated firmware, unsecured access). This identification sets up the subsequent analysis of how bad the consequences would be and what controls to put in place.