As businesses become more dependent on modern digital solutions, the need to stay protected increases. Each of these solutions boosts efficiency, improves working environments, and unlocks new capabilities. However, they also open more avenues for hackers to target and exploit. To prevent security threats and cyber attacks resulting in business downtime or data breaches, for example, security solutions are required. An information security policy is used to keep all these solutions organized and working in harmony. Doing so enables all key personnel to respond quickly and effectively, ensures complete security compliance, and much more.
What is an information security policy (ISP)?
An information security policy, or ISP, is the predetermined rules, responsibilities, and processes that help govern a business’ IT security. An ISP binds together a variety of solutions to govern cohesive security architecture. As a document, it is the security guidebook for your organization. It should have all of the following:
- Practical advice and steps to be followed
- Groundworks for acceptable use of information technology
- Consistent updates to ensure compliance and effectiveness
- A range of solutions tailored toward your business
Ultimately, an ISP is an overarching cybersecurity policy that can relate to any aspect of information security. This will include more specific and niche policies or procedures that will be discussed later.
What is the importance of information security policies?
Businesses are constantly fighting an uphill battle to keep their data safe. An ISP is a crucial step in ensuring your organization meets all security compliance standards. This will keep data safe from the dangers of cyber attacks that can cause data theft, leaks, and breaches. In many countries and industries, there are legal requirements surrounding data security. Businesses that want to operate and handle client data will need to satisfy all these security requirements to even operate.
ISPs provide organizations with a map to follow surrounding any event concerning information security. This could involve processes following a cyber attack, or the different policies taken for data of varying sensitivities. Without an ISP, organizations are at risk of falling victim to compliance issues or, even worse, cyber security incidents. In the latter case, reputation, business continuity, finances and more are at stake.
The building blocks of a good information security policy
Information security policies vary a great deal from organization to organization. Different industries and types of businesses necessitate certain requirements and a unique approach to an ISP. However, all proper ISPs will contain the following elements:
A purpose or mission
An ISP is not so dissimilar to any other organization-wide policy in that it needs a purpose. Only with a clear goal in mind are ISPs able to be effectively drafted and implemented. Your organization’s ISP mission may be anything from:
- Maintaining and preserving reputation in the event of a cyber incident
- Adhering with security-related compliance regulations
- Prevent security breaches or data leaks
- Keep sensitive business or client data safe
- and more…
An audience
All businesses, SMEs and MNCs alike should detail an audience for the ISP. This is anyone that the policy applies to. This may include:
- Key IT personnel within your business
- Third-party & vendors that relate to your information security matters
Information security objectives
Information security policies are generally crafted around three key cybersecurity objectives. Often referred to as CIA, these are regarded as the cornerstones of information security.
- Confidentiality: All businesses have confidential or sensitive data pertaining to themselves or their clients. Keeping this data out of malicious hands is crucial. This includes everything from access control to preventing data leaks.
- Integrity: The integrity of data refers to its accuracy and reliability. All the data your organization handles should be free from tampering, editing, or other improper use. This includes accidental issues such as human error in data entry to more malicious acts.
- Availability: High-quality data kept safe is useless if it is not made available to the right people at the right time. Availability is concerned with making sure data is stored properly, backups can be accessed, and so on.
Access control
When it comes to information security, access control is crucial. Limiting access to only authorized personnel is typically done through a hierarchical model. This means that a more senior employee will have greater access together with the ability to grant access. Additionally, access control is achieved through security systems using passwords, biometrics, and so on.
Data classification
Businesses hold and deal with far too much data to store it all safely. To get around this issue, data classification is used. This is something typically detailed in an information security policy. For example, your organization may classify data into confidential, client, public, and more categories. The purpose of this is to ensure classified data is kept in the right hands, and public data is not wasting resources. Data classification will coordinate with access control policies in this regard.
Data safety
After classifying data, there needs to be a detailed method of keeping it safe. The data safety sections of ISPs are concerned with:
- Backups using traditional data centers or cloud storage
- Data movement using the proper methods only
- A data encryption policy
- Meeting all data protection regulations
Security awareness training
A common cyber security proverb is that employees are an organization’s weakest link. With a proper information security policy, this becomes less of an issue. Security awareness training will help your employees identify potential cyber security incidents from the onset. This way, there is a far slimmer chance of your organization suffering a data breach or leak. Everything from social engineering tactics and clean desk policies to the dangers of public, unsecured networks can be taught.
Key Responsibilities
For an organization to keep all its information secure, there needs to be detailed responsibilities. It is an ISP's job to do this. There should be staff in charge of everything, including but not limited to:
- Incident response plans
- Disaster recovery
- Access control systems
- Data security
- Network security systems
- Cyber Risk assessments
- Physical security
- Business continuity plans
- Staff security training
Components of an information security policy:
An organization’s information security policy can consist of many sub-components. Here are some often included:
- Access control: An access control policy determines who can access an organization’s data. Tools like Sangfor Internet Access Gateway (IAG) are used to control access and much more.
- Incident response: Despite our best efforts, cyber incidents can happen to even the most prepared of organizations. An incident response policy will help ensure the disruption caused by such events is minimal and not catastrophic. An incident response policy will detail the steps to be taken before, during, and after a crisis.
- Disaster recovery: Disaster recovery policies, like incident response, focus on preparing and recovering from a cyber security incident. However, disaster recovery is centered around data backups and restoration.
- Business continuity: All businesses need a business continuity plan. A BCP acts as a blueprint for organizations to follow after a cyber security incident to restore normal operations. Less downtime directly translates into more profits and a better reputation.
- Data classification: As discussed before, data classification is the act of categorizing data into different groups. Each group will be allocated a priority level. With this, businesses can effectively manage confidential, public, and other types of data.
- Identity access and management: IAM policies are how organizations ensure that employees have the right amount of access to data to do their jobs properly. On the one hand, too much access could open up security risks. On the other, too little access creates roadblocks and inefficiencies.
- Data security: Data security policies will help lay out the security standards and requirements for data. As mentioned, this may vary within industries and different legal requirements.
- Remote access: In the digital age, remote access has become necessary. Not only does this include employees traveling or working abroad, but also those now working from home. Remote access policies help ensure only suitable security measures are used to connect to sensitive company applications, networks, or data.
Learn more with Sangfor
There are countless components of information security policies. If you have a question or would like to inquire about how Sangfor’s solutions can further bolster your ISP, contact us here.
