In today world along with the growth of technologies new threats to information have also become a fact for most organizations. That being said information security has become one of the main pillars of any IT organization with a company. Simply put Information security is the process by which an organization implements controls in place which ensure that business critical servers and applications are protected from unauthorized usage. This requires deployment, compliance and implementation of appropriate protection and prevention mechanisms.
ISO27001 Approach
ISO 27001 is the international standard defining the desired methods of controlling the confidentiality, integrity and availability of information. The CIA triad is the pillar on which the ISO 27001 implementation would revolve. CIA (Confidentiality – Integrity – Availability)
• Confidentiality: Keeping private information away from individuals who should not have access.
• Integrity: Integrity means that data is consistent and that it hasn't been modified.
• Availability: Availability means to have reliable and timely access to the data and resources you are authorized to use
AN ISO27001 implementation would also help evolve effective ISMS (Information Security Management System). A typical ISO27001 policy follows a PDCA (Plan – Do – Check –Act) cycle.
Establish ISMS – This would help to define the scope and boundaries of the ISMS. As simple as this may sound this is where most companies struggle to strike a balance between the costs of implementation with the scope of activities with the certification. Once the scope is finalized define the ISMS policy and decide on the risk assessment methodology, the risk treatment options and prepare the statement of Applicability (SoA). The RA will help identify critical assets that need to be protected and controls that exist / need to be implemented. Organizations need to decide on the acceptable levels of risk since control implementation will have costs associated with it.
Implement and operate ISMS – This follows your RA and evaluation of cost of controls. Identified risks for critical assets need to be reduced to bring it down to the acceptable levels of risk. This could be through implementing new controls or just modifying existing controls. What remains are also knows as residual risk.
Post implementation organization would need to
Monitor and Review ISMS – The organization would need to undertake periodic review of the effectiveness of the ISMS in order to ensure that control objectives are being met and are aligned with business objectives. This review is should be conducted by the MISF.
Following a typical PDCA cycle, organization also need to continuously review the ISMS implementation in order to ensure that identified improvement measures get executed.
Conclusion: The way ahead for ISO is that it should be flexible to deal with the growing complexity and scale of information security threats to the organization.
It should ensure that the supporting information security policy is sound and enforceable and recognize that people and processes are critical, and that technology is just a small part of an overall IT Framework.
Currently rated 3.0 by 5 people
- Currently 3/5 Stars.
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5