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Created by Claudiu Tabac - © 2026
This material is open for educational and research use. Commercial use without explicit permission from the author is not allowed.
ICT Risk Management (DORA-IRM)
The ICT Risk Management domain under the DORA Lens evaluates whether ICT-related risks are identified, governed, and managed end-to-end in a way that protects the continuity of critical business services. This domain determines whether ICT risk is treated as a core business risk with executive ownership, not merely as a technical concern relegated to IT departments.
Purpose of This Domain
Systematic Identification
ICT risks are systematically identified and classified across all systems, services, and infrastructure components that support critical business operations.
Clear Accountability
Risk ownership and accountability are clearly assigned to appropriate management levels with the authority to make decisions and allocate resources.
Risk-Based Protection
Preventive and protective measures are selected and implemented based on assessed risk levels rather than generic compliance checklists.
Service Resilience
ICT risk decisions actively support business service resilience and continuity objectives aligned with organizational priorities.
DORA evaluates how ICT risk is governed throughout the organization, not just whether technical controls exist. The focus is on demonstrating executive engagement, risk-informed decision-making, and continuous alignment with business objectives.
Governance & Ownership of ICT Risk
This capability area examines whether ICT risk is owned and overseen at the appropriate management level with clear lines of accountability and decision-making authority. Organizations must demonstrate that ICT risk governance is not delegated entirely to technical teams but is integrated into enterprise-wide risk management frameworks.
Key Governance Requirements
  • Clear assignment of ICT risk ownership to named individuals at management level
  • Integration of ICT risk into enterprise risk governance structures and committees
  • Active management oversight of ICT risk exposure through regular review cycles
  • Documented ability to explain ICT risk decisions and trade-offs to supervisors
ICT risk governance must be explicit, demonstrable, and auditable. Supervisors expect organizations to show how ICT risk decisions are made, who makes them, and how they align with critical service protection.
Executive Level
Board and senior management oversight of ICT risk strategy and exposure
Risk Management
Enterprise risk functions integrating ICT into overall risk framework
Operational Level
Business and IT owners managing day-to-day ICT risk execution
Identification & Classification of ICT Risks
This capability area focuses on whether ICT risks are systematically identified across systems, services, and dependencies that support critical business operations. Organizations must maintain comprehensive visibility into their ICT risk landscape, including cyber threats, operational vulnerabilities, and third-party dependencies.
01
Asset Identification
Comprehensive identification of ICT assets, systems, and infrastructure components supporting critical business services and operations
02
Risk Classification
Classification of identified risks based on potential impact to services, likelihood of occurrence, and cascading effects
03
Multi-Dimensional Analysis
Consideration of cyber security risks, operational failures, and dependency vulnerabilities across the entire ICT ecosystem
04
Periodic Reassessment
Regular reassessment cycles as technology environments, threat landscapes, and business dependencies evolve over time

Critical Insight: Unidentified ICT risks fundamentally undermine resilience planning. Organizations cannot protect what they do not know exists or understand. DORA requires systematic, repeatable processes for risk identification that adapt to changing environments.
Risk Assessment & Prioritization
This capability area evaluates whether ICT risks are assessed and prioritized consistently using defined methodologies that link technical risk to business impact. Organizations must demonstrate systematic approaches to understanding which ICT risks pose the greatest threat to critical services.
Assessment Framework Components
  • Defined and documented ICT risk assessment methodology applied consistently
  • Clear alignment between ICT risk levels and business service impact analysis
  • Explicit prioritization of risks affecting critical or important business functions
  • Comprehensive documentation of assessment outcomes, assumptions, and limitations
DORA expects risk-based prioritization, not uniform treatment of all ICT risks. Resources should be allocated proportionally to risk levels, with critical service protection receiving appropriate attention and investment.
1
Methodology
Standardized risk assessment approach
2
Business Alignment
Link between ICT risk and service impact
3
Prioritization
Focus on critical service protection
4
Documentation
Auditable assessment records
Risk Treatment & Preventive Measures
This capability area examines whether ICT risks are treated through appropriate preventive and protective measures that are proportional to the assessed risk level and aligned with business service criticality. Organizations must demonstrate clear traceability between risk decisions and implemented controls.
1
Control Selection
Selection of preventive and protective controls that are proportional to assessed ICT risk levels and threat scenarios
2
Risk Alignment
Demonstrated alignment between formal risk treatment decisions and actually implemented technical and organizational safeguards
3
Residual Acceptance
Formal acceptance of residual ICT risk by appropriate management levels with documented rationale and review periods
4
Decision Traceability
Clear traceability between risk assessment outcomes, treatment decisions, and deployed controls for supervisory review
Preventive measures must reflect actual service criticality. Generic control implementations without risk justification fail to meet DORA expectations for risk-based ICT management.
Integration with Resilience & Continuity
1
1
Risk-Continuity Link
Direct linkage between identified ICT risks and business continuity planning assumptions
2
2
Scenario Analysis
Consideration of failure and disruption scenarios derived from risk assessments
3
3
Recovery Alignment
Alignment with recovery time and recovery point objectives for critical services
4
4
Coordinated Planning
Coordination between prevention strategies and recovery planning activities
This capability area focuses on whether ICT risk management supports operational resilience objectives by extending beyond pure prevention to inform recovery and continuity strategies. Organizations must demonstrate that risk insights drive resilience planning.
ICT risk management cannot stop at implementing preventive controls. DORA requires organizations to consider how identified risks inform worst-case scenarios, recovery planning, and continuity arrangements. This integration ensures that resilience strategies address realistic threat scenarios rather than theoretical disruptions.
The connection between risk assessment and continuity planning must be explicit and bidirectional. Risk insights should inform recovery priorities, while testing outcomes should feed back into risk reassessment cycles.
Review, Monitoring & Continuous Improvement
1
Q1: Regular Review
Scheduled review cycles of ICT risk exposure, emerging threats, and changing business dependencies
2
Q2: Control Monitoring
Active monitoring of control effectiveness through metrics, testing, and operational validation
3
Q3: Incident Learning
Incorporation of incident outcomes, near-misses, and test results into risk reassessment processes
4
Q4: Practice Evolution
Continuous improvement of risk management practices based on lessons learned and maturity growth
This capability area evaluates whether ICT risk management is reviewed and improved over time rather than treated as a static compliance exercise. Organizations must demonstrate learning cycles that incorporate real-world experience into risk management practices.

Evolution Imperative: Static ICT risk management fails under evolving threats. DORA expects organizations to demonstrate how risk practices mature through operational experience, testing outcomes, and changing threat landscapes.
Evidence & Common Failure Patterns
Evidence & Supervisory Perspective
Evidence supporting this domain must demonstrate active ICT risk governance, not theoretical models or policy documents alone. Supervisors look for decision traceability and management engagement.
Representative Evidence
  • ICT risk registers with ownership assignments and current assessments
  • Documented management decisions on ICT risk treatment and resource allocation
  • Mapping between identified ICT risks and implemented controls
  • Review and oversight documentation showing management engagement
  • Evidence of risk-informed decision-making in business cases and projects
Supervisors expect to see how ICT risk informs actual business decisions, not just compliance artifacts. The evidence must demonstrate that risk management drives organizational behavior.
Failure Perspective Under DORA
Understanding common failure patterns helps organizations avoid regulatory findings and operational weaknesses that undermine resilience.
Assessed Not Governed
ICT risk is analyzed but lacks management ownership and decision authority
Business Disconnect
No clear linkage between ICT risks and critical business service protection
Control Without Risk
Controls implemented without risk-based prioritization or justification
Learning Failure
No incorporation of incident outcomes or testing results into risk practices
How to Use This Page
This page serves as a comprehensive reference for understanding and implementing ICT Risk Management under the DORA framework. Use these resources to assess current capabilities, prepare for supervisory engagement, and strengthen operational resilience.
Assess Governance Maturity
Use this framework to evaluate your organization's ICT risk governance maturity under DORA requirements, identifying gaps between current state and regulatory expectations.
Align Stakeholders
Facilitate alignment between security, risk, and resilience teams by providing a common language and framework for discussing ICT risk management across organizational boundaries.
Prepare Evidence
Organize and prepare evidence for supervisory review by understanding what regulators expect to see and how to demonstrate active risk governance rather than theoretical compliance.
Executive Communication
Explain ICT risk posture to executive management using business-focused language that connects technical risk to critical service protection and business continuity.
ICT Risk Management answers a core DORA question: "Does the organization understand and govern the ICT risks that threaten its critical services?"
Created by Claudiu Tabac — © 2026
This material is open for educational and research use. Commercial use without explicit permission from the author is not allowed.