Manage Security

In today’s world, IT Security is a major concern for most of the organizations. Every now and then we hear about terrifying security lapses, for e.g., Sony’s PlayStation network gets hacked, Facebook and LinkedIn face security breaches. With the rapid growth of information technology over the years, the associated security issues have also grown, for e.g., organizations today have to deal with security risks associated with social media, cyber threats, cloud computing etc. Let’s face it; many organizations (small, medium or big) today have are in need of an effective access rights management, data security services and information security management policy. Also, implementation of these security measures is extremely weak.

With the increase in technology, most of the organizations collect, process, store and transfer information valuable to them through computer systems. This information is confidential and private, both to the organization as well as to the customers of the organization. Imagine the horror if your Facebook account is accessed by an unauthorized user. The unauthorized user may steal and publish your private photos online which would lead to embarrassment or make some derogatory comments on an official page which may lead to legal issues etc. Consider another scenario where your company’s database is accessed illegally. It is a threat to confidential information of employees, customers, financial reports of the company, business strategies, which can prove fatal for a company.

Manage IT helps businesses in data security services through their two processes, namely, Access Management and Information Security Management. These two processes help with the prevention and detection of unauthorized access, modification and inspection of confidential information in computer systems. In spite of the importance of managing data security services, organizations must keep in mind that all systems and applications are not critical to the business hence it is not wise to spend time, money and effort in protecting data, information systems and applications which are not valuable. Therefore the business should decide what needs to be protected and at what level. Manage Security by Manage IT ensures the following for your business:

• Builds information security policies keeping in mind the data, services, information systems and applications that needs protection.
• Guides on how the access and authentication process should be conducted and how to use internal and external IT resources within the organization or from remote access. 
• Takes care of the password and e-mail policies, segregation of duties, anti-virus policy, internet policy, authority issues and roles with their responsibilities.
• Implements a set of security controls to support and enforce the information security policy. These security controls ensure that the business risks are mitigated and the business processes are compliant with laws. All users (internal, external and temporary) and their activities on the IT systems (business application, system operation, development and maintenance) should be logged and uniquely identifiable. Each user is authenticated and has privileges as per the business requirements and in-line with the information security policy.
• Ensures that the confidential information is made available only to the person who has been given access and only the authenticated person can make changes to the information, if any.
• Maintains the credibility of the communication channel used for transfer of data and the integrity of the data. The devices used for storing the information is secure from unauthorized access; logging and monitoring function will enable the early prevention and/or detection and subsequent timely reporting of unusual and/or abnormal activities on any application.
• Regularly reviews the user accounts and their privileges to ensure dormant and terminated user accounts don’t have access to the applications and current accounts have their privileges as per the business requirements.
• Monitors and regularly reports the activities on the applications, thus ensuring that the security breaches if any are identified, reported and remediated on time.
• Ensures that corrective actions will be taken in future to prevent occurrences of similar data security incidents.

Manage IT helps in the implementation of information security processes and policies with appropriate preventive security measures such as to detecting / preventing security breaches and reporting as well as remediating security issues in a timely manner.

About Author:

Onkar Lalla is a Consultant and an important part of the Systems Plus Pvt. Ltd.  think tank. Within Systems Plus, he actively contributes to the areas of Technology and Information Security. He can be contacted at onkar.l@spluspl.com