Patent ID: 8478788

Claim:
A method comprising: building a hierarchical knowledge management system, wherein said hierarchical knowledge management system is configured to maintain asset information, wherein said asset information comprises information regarding one or more assets, and risk management information, and said building said hierarchical knowledge management system comprises defining a hierarchical structure, wherein said hierarchical structure represents an organizational structure of a business, providing a user-defined scheduling process, wherein said user-defined scheduling process facilitates repeated collection of said risk management information, setting a risk management threshold for one or more areas of risk, wherein said one or more areas of risk comprise at least one of policy compliance, vulnerabilities, policy compliance remediation, or vulnerability remediation, receiving said risk management information, wherein said risk management information is collected from one or more data collection systems, assigning said risk management information to said one or more of said assets, calculating an aggregate risk metric, wherein said calculating said aggregate risk metric is performed using said risk management information, and said calculating said aggregate risk metric comprises calculating a risk metric for each of said one or more assets, comparing said aggregate risk metric with said risk management threshold, wherein said comparing comprises updating said asset information, and said updating said information comprises determining whether a data item exists in said asset information, and creating said data item in said asset information, if said data item does not exist in said asset information, and reporting a result of said comparing.