What is Risk acceptance?

Understanding Risk acceptance

Determining that the potential benefits of a business function outweigh the possible risk impact/likelihood and performing that business function with no other action. Risk acceptance is a risk treatment option where an organization makes an informed decision to acknowledge and bear the potential consequences of a specific risk without implementing additional controls. This approach is appropriate when the cost or difficulty of other risk treatments exceeds the expected benefits. Risk acceptance is defined in standards like ISO 31000 ISO 27001 NIST RMF and various regulatory frameworks. Organizations implement risk acceptance through formal processes requiring documented justification approval by appropriate authority levels regular review of accepted risks and clear accountability. For example a financial services company might formally accept the risk of not implementing a particular security feature in their mobile banking application after determining that the risk is low existing compensating controls are adequate and the cost of implementation would significantly delay a critical market launch with the CIO and CISO formally documenting and signing off on this acceptance. Related terms Risk treatment Risk appetite Risk tolerance Residual risk Formal acceptance Risk register Exception management Risk-based decision making.