Steps to Plan An Effective Enterprise Security Program

Businesses today store and exchange strategic data over the Internet. Such data if leaked can hit the reputation and trustworthiness of the provider in the most devastating of ways. Also there are chances of hackers breaking into the business’s data centers and other locations where strategic information is stored. To counter such security issues it is advisable that businesses strengthen their IT security systems which would act as a deterrent against break-in attempts.

One way of doing this is enhancing the enterprise security which effectively means taking steps to securing all locations where data is stored. Designing an enterprise security program is a step-by-step approach and the organization must take all factors into account while arriving at a final blueprint. Businesses should also not forget to follow the below mentioned guidelines while carving out an IT security program:

• First and foremost businesses should create two information security teams: the executive team and the cross-functional security team. The former team should comprise of senior executives who would be entrusted with the responsibility of defining the mission, objective, goals and rules of the program. The second team should constitute of sub teams and should be adept enough to handle IT equipment, establishing and implementing policies, assessing threats, managing risks from various sources.

• The executive team should determine the standards and regulations to be implemented. Such regulations should be industry specific and should define the best business practices as followed by the industry. For example businesses operating in the pharmaceutical industry should comply with the Drug Policy.

• Next businesses should evaluate the various threats which can be defined as sources which pose danger to various information assets, vulnerabilities which are the weaknesses present in the system, process or technologies and even people and risks which include events that can result in unfavorable outcome for the business. For example a system which has a porous firewall (vulnerability) and is managed by a not so knowledgeable professional will always be exposed to the threats of unwanted elements gaining access (risk).

• It is important that businesses stress on developing an Incident Management and Disaster Recovery Plan. Designing an Incident Management Plan would enable organization in countering several threats that the system is exposed to like security breaches, the data getting deleted or power outages within the data center. A Disaster Recovery Program on the other hand would include ways to recover data lost due to a natural disaster.

• Businesses should without fail implement security controls regarding both technical (which include safeguarding the technical components like computer hardwares, softwares, etc. by installing intrusion-detection soft wares, following encryption methods, etc.) as well as non-technical components which includes implementing security policies, operational controls, etc.

Finally when the system is implemented and is running businesses should make it a point to conduct regular audits which would enable them in evaluating the efficacy of the system.

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