Book Image

Information Security Handbook

By : Darren Death
Book Image

Information Security Handbook

By: Darren Death

Overview of this book

Having an information security mechanism is one of the most crucial factors for any organization. Important assets of organization demand a proper risk management and threat model for security, and so information security concepts are gaining a lot of traction. This book starts with the concept of information security and shows you why it’s important. It then moves on to modules such as threat modeling, risk management, and mitigation. It also covers the concepts of incident response systems, information rights management, and more. Moving on, it guides you to build your own information security framework as the best fit for your organization. Toward the end, you’ll discover some best practices that can be implemented to make your security framework strong. By the end of this book, you will be well-versed with all the factors involved in information security, which will help you build a security framework that is a perfect fit your organization’s requirements.
Table of Contents (19 chapters)
Title Page
Credits
About the Author
About the Reviewers
www.PacktPub.com
Customer Feedback
Preface

Policies


A policy is a foundational aspect to the development of a strong information security program. When developing a policy, you should ensure that you follow a few key principles:

  • Receive board-level / CEO approval and support:
    • Without CEO or board-level backing, a security program is doomed to fail
  • You should only create a policy that you intend to follow:
    • This means do not create a policy for the sake of the documentation. A policy that sits on the shelf and is never used does not help anyone.
    • Policies that you don't follow will be used by an auditor to show that you are deficient:
      • If you have policies follow them.
  • Ensure your policies are implementable:
    • There are many ways that a security standard can be met, and your policies should reflect the way that your organization wants to implement a standard
    • Do not describe four points in a policy if you intend to only implement two of them if those two provide adequate risk mitigation
  • A policy needs to take into account the organization's appetite for accepting risk:
    • Consider the value of the information that your organization owns.
    • Consider what would happen to the organization if you lost control over the confidentiality, integrity, and/or availability of the information:
      • Are you trying to safeguard trade secrets or sensitive proprietary information (confidentiality)?
      • Does information need to be accurate at all times (integrity)?
      • Could the organization effectively operate without its information (availability)?
    • Answers to questions like these, combined with an understanding of you organizations risk appetite, will inform your policy development.