Explore KSACs by Pathway
In late 2025, the Partnership pulled together members of industry from across tech to share how the in-demand skillsets for entry-level roles in their fields have changed in the last two years. The Knowledge, Skills & Abilities and Credentials (KSACs) below reflect their feedback on entry-level expectations, especially in a tech workplace increasingly shaped by AI.
12. Risk Management & Risk Assessment
| Label | KSAC Description | Bloom's Taxonomy Level | |
|---|---|---|---|
| a | Understand the basic principles of risk and describe risk management role in the organization (e.g., business continuity concepts, business impact analysis, Identification of critical systems and components, removing single points of failure). | knowledge | 2 |
| b | Describe and plan fault tolerance (e.g., hardware replication, RAID, clustering, load balancing, disaster recovery concepts, backup plans/policies, backup execution/frequency). | skill | 3 |
| c | Describe the concepts of risk assessment (e.g., disaster recovery plan, IT contingency planning - succession planning,redundancy). | knowledge | 2 |
| d | Apply risk assessment techniques to identify, assess, and prioritize risk factors for information assets concepts related to threat vectors and probability/threat likelihood | skill | 3 |
| e | Identify concepts of risk calculation (likelihood, ALE, impact, SLE, ARO, MTTR, MTTF, MTBF). | knowledge | 2 |
| f | Describe popular methodologies used in industry to manage risk. Including Governance, Risk ancn Compliance (GRC) processes | knowledge | 2 |
| g | Describe cybersecurity risk in relation to business risk | knowledge | 2 |
| h | Describe the risk management process for buildng systems and software applications, including connnected systems, thrd-parties, and the supply chain with the concept of due diligence | knowledge | 2 |
| i | Explain how cybersecurity incidents affect a business continuity plan. | knowledge | 2 |
| j | Identify compliance with regulations and guidelines and how it varies from government to different industries (e.g., healthcare) | knowledge | 2 |
| k | Apply cerification and accreditation processes | skill | 4 |
| l | Apply audit and compliance processes | skill | 5 |