Insider Risk Capability Assessment Checklist
A capability assessment checklist helps teams determine whether core insider risk capabilities exist, are governed, have evidence, and are improving. It should be used to identify gaps and prioritize action without relying only on incidents or alert volume.
Primary Audience & Scope
Program managers, risk owners, auditors, executives
When to Use
- •Performing annual program review.
- •Preparing for executive reporting.
- •Building a capability roadmap.
Interactive Work Area
Fill or track items interactively and copy out to your Clipboard
Template Table Structure
| Capability area | Assessment question | Evidence to collect | Owner / action |
|---|---|---|---|
| Governance | Is there an approved charter, executive sponsor, steering forum, and review cadence? | Charter, committee minutes, decision log | Program owner |
| Oversight and compliance | Are monitoring, investigations, privacy, legal, HR, and labor review points defined? | Approval records, policy references, legal/privacy review notes | Legal/Privacy/Compliance |
| Personnel assurance | Are joiner, mover, leaver, high-risk role, manager referral, and workforce reporting processes defined? | HR workflow, referral procedure, training records | HR/Personnel Assurance |
| IAM and PAM | Are access reviews, privileged access controls, emergency access, and offboarding validations operating? | Access certifications, PAM logs, deprovisioning evidence | IAM/PAM Owner |
| Data protection | Are crown jewels, sensitive data, DLP policies, and data owner accountability documented? | Data inventory, DLP rules, crown jewel registry | Data Protection Owner |
| Monitoring | Are use cases approved, proportionate, documented, and reviewed? | Use-case inventory, monitoring approvals, data source list | Monitoring Owner |
| Analysis | Are triage criteria, context enrichment, false positive tracking, and closure reasons standardized? | Triage records, alert quality metrics | Analysis Lead |
| Investigation | Are intake, case records, evidence preservation, chain of custody, and closure procedures standardized? | Case templates, evidence logs, closure records | Investigation Lead |
| Third-party risk | Are contractor/MSP access and offboarding controls reviewed? | Vendor access review, data return certification | Vendor/IAM Owner |
| Metrics and reporting | Are exposure, process, control, maturity, and improvement metrics reported? | Dashboard, executive briefing, action tracker | Reporting Owner |
Checklist Audit List
Confirm assessment scope and review period.
Gather evidence before rating capability health.
Separate missing capability, weak process, missing evidence, and weak adoption.
Assign owners and target dates for gaps.
Escalate material gaps to governance forum.
Add unresolved high-priority gaps to risk register.
Schedule reassessment.
What Completion Looks Like
- 1Every IRCF™-aligned capability area has evidence or a documented gap.
- 2Each material gap has an owner and target date.
- 3Assessment results are reviewed by governance forum.
- 4Follow-up actions are tracked.
Insider Risk Capability Framework™ (IRCF™) Alignment
Operationalize This Template in RiskTKO®
Use RiskTKO® or request ITMG® support to adapt this template, align it to the Insider Risk Capability Framework™, and connect the output to measurable exposure reduction. Insider Risk Exposure Assessment Worksheet