# Assess and improve your cybersecurity risk posture with ADManager Plus
## Identity Risk Assessment in ADManager Plus
Identity Risk Assessment in [ADManager Plus](https://www.manageengine.com/uk/products/ad-manager/?utm_source=admp&utm_medium=feature-page&utm_content=active-directory-risk-assessment-report) provides a comprehensive look into your Active Directory (AD) and Microsoft 365 threat landscape by analyzing risk factors that could lead to security attacks. ADManager Plus actively conducts hybrid AD security assessment across AD and Microsoft 365 environments, pinpointing potential security vulnerabilities, assessing their impact, and providing actionable insights and proactive strategies to mitigate them effectively.
Apart from identifying risks and strengthening your risk posture, you can also create [access certification campaigns](https://www.manageengine.com/uk/products/ad-manager/identity-governance-administration/access-certification.html?utm_source=admp&utm_medium=feature-page&utm_content=active-directory-risk-assessment-report) to review and validate the access rights and privileges granted to users. This feature helps to thwart access-related risks and meet [compliance mandates](https://www.manageengine.com/uk/products/ad-manager/compliance-reports.html?utm_source=admp&utm_medium=feature-page&utm_content=active-directory-risk-assessment-report).
## The Need For Identity Risk Assessment
Active Directory (AD) is an integral part of an organisation's network and is highly susceptible to security risks. One wrong move in your AD can have adverse effects on your business and can potentially break it. Organisations are thus advised to implement a cybersecurity and identity risk management strategy to secure and protect their network and reputation.
As per the [NIST Special Publication 800-39, Managing Information Security Risk: Organization, Mission, and Information System View](https://nvlpubs.nist.gov/nistpubs/legacy/sp/nistspecialpublication800-39.pdf), identity risk assessment plays a critical role in the risk management process. It involves identifying, evaluating, and reporting the identity risks in an environment, which when exploited can have dire effects on an organisation and its assets. It’s important to know when an identity risk assessment is required.
The need for identity risk assessment arises when:
- There is a lack of visibility into security gaps
- Organisations need to address the security misconfigurations
- There are no security policies to govern and secure the organisation's identities
- There is a need to comply with compliance regulations
- Organisations need insights on their threat landscape
## Deciphering the Identity Risk Assessment Report
ADManager Plus follows the NIST SP 800-30 guidelines to assess, identify, and evaluate the risk indicators in an environment. By conducting a thorough hybrid AD security assessment, ADManager Plus summarizes your AD and Microsoft health and risk status with a risk score. This score is an indication of how secure or vulnerable your AD and Microsoft 365 environments are—a lower risk score indicates that your organisation is less prone to attacks, while a higher risk score indicates higher risk which requires immediate attention.
Identified risk indicators demand attention based on their severity and risk exposure level. Each risk indicator can be viewed as an individual report, and risky objects can be managed directly from the Identity Risk Assessment report. ADManager Plus also illuminates the impact that these risk indicators could have on your AD and Microsoft 365 environment and provides actionable recommendations to reduce their likelihood of occurrence.
Key highlights of the Identity Risk Assessment report:
- Get a bird's-eye view of your AD and Microsoft 365 threat landscape.
- Prioritise risks based on their severity.
- Gain insights on the identified risk indicators and their impact.
- Mitigate risks using on-the-fly actions, strengthening the hybrid AD security assessment process.
- Analyse risk score fluctuations over time using the risk score trend graph.
- Customise data sync schedules to align with reporting needs, ensuring up-to-date risk assessments.
## Benefits of Using ADManager Plus for Identity Risk Assessments
Conducting an in-depth Identity Risk Assessment is essential for identifying vulnerabilities and strengthening cybersecurity. With ADManager Plus, users gain actionable insights into risks, helping you prevent security breaches, ensure compliance, and improve incident response. Explore the key benefits of using ADManager Plus for identity risk assessments:
Key benefits include:
### Foresee AD-related attacks and mitigate them
Identifying and mitigating risks even before they can pose a security threat helps you avoid AD-related attacks, security breaches, and ransomware attacks, which can cost a fortune.
### Strengthen risk posture
Strengthen your cybersecurity game by identifying risk indicators, mitigating them, and fortifying your network and data from them.
### Improve incident management
Enhance incident response with strategies and measures to deal with AD-specific risks.
### Demonstrate compliance
Meet audit and compliance requirements set by mandates like the GDPR and the PCI DSS by performing a thorough hybrid AD security assessment.
### Gap analysis
Identify and fill the gaps in your network and cybersecurity practices.
## Use Cases:
### Use Case 1: Security Evaluation
Learn how strong your security game is with this report. The Identity Risk Assessment report offers a panoramic view of your AD and Microsoft 365 risk posture in its vibrant dashboard along with an overall risk score, computed based on the risk indicators in an organisation.
![Identity risk assessment in ADManager Plus](https://www.manageengine.com/uk/products/ad-manager/images/active-directory-risk-assessment-report-s2.png)
### Use Case 2: Compliance Assurance
Conduct identity risk assessments and comply with various IT mandates. IT regulations like the GDPR, SOX, the PCI DSS, and more demand organisations to implement a structural risk management plan and assess their networks for potential risks. Manage Engine’s ADManager Plus allows you to streamline the entire process by identifying AD and Microsoft 365 risk indicators, and providing a detailed report on those indicators. These identity risk assessment reports can be exported and utilised during compliance auditing.
![Identity risk assessment in ADManager Plus](https://www.manageengine.com/uk/products/ad-manager/images/active-directory-risk-assessment-report-s3.png)
## Frequently Asked Questions
### 1. What is an identity risk assessment?
An identity risk assessment is a security evaluation process used to identify and analyse vulnerabilities related to user identities within an IT environment, particularly in systems like Active Directory. It helps companies uncover potential threats, such as excessive permissions or inactive accounts, and take corrective actions to reduce the risk of security breaches.
## Other ADManager Plus Active Directory Reporting Features:
### [Active Directory User Reports](https://www.manageengine.com/uk/products/ad-manager/active_directory_user_reports.html?utm_source=admp&utm_medium=features&utm_content=active-directory-risk-assessment-report)
Exhaustive reporting on Active Directory Users and user-attributes. Generate reports in user-activity in your Active Directory. Perform user-management actions right from the report interface!
### [Active Directory Compliance Reports](https://www.manageengine.com/uk/products/ad-manager/compliance-reports.html?utm_source=admp&utm_medium=features&utm_content=active-directory-risk-assessment-report)
Active Directory reports to assist you for compliance to Government Regulatory Acts like SOX, HIPAA, GLBA, PCI, USA PATRIOT...and much more! Make your organization compliance-perfect!
### [Active Directory Management](https://www.manageengine.com/uk/products/ad-manager/active-directory-management.html?utm_source=admp&utm_medium=features&utm_content=active-directory-risk-assessment-report)
Make your everyday Active Directory management tasks easy and light with ADManager Plus's AD Management features. Create, modify and delete users in a few clicks!
### [Terminal Services management](https://www.manageengine.com/uk/products/ad-manager/active-directory-terminal-services.html?utm_source=admp&utm_medium=features&utm_content=active-directory-risk-assessment-report)
Configure Active Directory Terminal Services attributes from a much simpler interface than AD native tools. Exercise complete control over technicians accessing other domain users' computers.
### [Active Directory Cleanup](https://www.manageengine.com/uk/products/ad-manager/cleanup-your-active-directory.html?utm_source=admp&utm_medium=features&utm_content=active-directory-risk-assessment-report)
Get rid of the inactive, obsolete and unwanted objects in your Active Directory to make it more secure and efficient...assisted by ADManager Plus's AD Cleanup capabilities.
### [Active Directory Automation](https://www.manageengine.com/uk/products/ad-manager/active-directory-management-automation/active-directory-automation.html?utm_source=admp&utm_medium=features&utm_content=active-directory-risk-assessment-report)
A complete automation of AD critical tasks such as user provisioning, inactive-user clean up etc. Also lets you sequence and execute follow-up tasks and blends with workflow to offer a brilliant controlled-automation.