A Ten Step Approach to Developing an Information Security Program

A Ten Step Approach to Developing an Information Security Program Bill Paraska Director of University Computing & Communications Services Georgia State University

“Just do it so I don’t have to hear about it again” • This is a management issue • IT staff can’t decide what’s important, who needs to protect it, what’s acceptable behavior from employees and what the penalties are for non-compliance • It’s not going to go away • Putting up a firewall doesn’t make it go away – you need a plan that is maintained and evolves • When you get hacked, it’s usually not IT they are after

Boy are you going to be popular • This stuff costs real dollars that were never budgeted • You can’t show any positive impact on the student retention or semester hours registered • You say you can never really fix the entire problem • You don’t know where the next attack is coming from • One of your instructional departments may even be teaching the tools to launch the attacks

A pair of students were blocked by a Georgia state court from presenting information at a security and hackers' conference on how to break into and modify a university electronic transactions system

Plan, execute, evaluate, fine-tune, repeat • Biggest long term mistake you can make is quick fixes with unfounded expectations • Do the homework and go after where it’s going to hurt the most • User inconvenience should not be an evaluation criteria • Don’t take it personal

Ten Step Approach • Determine the "state of security" • Write a DRAFT Information Security Strategic Plan • Review existing policies and standards • Get Institution management buy-in • Write the annual Information Security Plan • Evaluate your security staff composition • Engage the active involvement of campus departments and IT leaders • Implement an incident response team • Start a security awareness program • Integrate security into the business and academic processes of the institution

Determine The “State of Security“ • Using automated tools to “discover” information about your campus network • Use your own assessment plus contacts around campus to get a straw-man of what’s important, to who and why • Make preliminary assessment of vulnerabilities

Develop a DRAFT Information Security Strategic Plan • Your ideas of how to approach what you have just identified • Link it to the Institution Strategic Plan or Master Plan – portray information security as a “key enabler” • Let them shoot holes in it • “No plan” means everything you bring to the table is “ad-hoc” and suspect

Review Existing Policies and Standards • Policy (Principle)—What the expected end result is • Standards (Rules)—What will be allowed to meet those end results • Procedures (Process)—How to do what is allowed • Assumes you have some already. If not use what you can find that fits your institution goals and missions and management attitude • These are essential to determining appropriate tools to alleviate risks, threats and vulnerabilities

Characteristics of Good Policy • Foundation in business practice not technology • Acts in the best interest of the institution • Does not prevent the attainment of subordinate organization objectives, goals • Has an element of compliance less costly than non-compliance • Once it’s completed, it sounds like common sense

The Process of Policy • Needs to be done at the top of the organization • Define areas of common benefit • Agree to architectural components of common benefit • Agree to applications of common benefit • Agree on policies

The Mechanics of Policy • Simple, direct statements (principles) • No more than one page per principle • Not written by the security officer or CIO • Not a set of technical rules (that comes later)

Examples • Every manager is responsible for the accuracy, security and integrity of the information used by his/her organization • All corporate information is an asset of the university and will be protected as such

Get Management Buy-in • You did all the stuff before this step because you are the technical expert • Sell it on their terms – not with IT techno babble • Get their validation of where the most pain would be based on the threats you have outlined

Write the Information Security Annual Plan • They told you what is important so find the approach to protect it – throw their words back at them • Establish the procedure, the goals and the measurements • Show how it fits into your existing information technology environment • Don’t hide the costs

Evaluate Your Security Staff Composition • Minimum Staffing—an Information Security Officer to develop and manage your security initiatives • Utilizing a cross-section of information technology staff members with backgrounds in networking, application and server management • Ramp up to what makes sense for the Strategy • Is outsourcing right for you?

Engage the Active Involvement of Campus Departments, IT Leaders • Don’t dictate—Educate! • It’s their problem too! Appeal to the diverse needs and requirements of students, faculty, department heads and information technology staff members • Qualify and quantify risks where possible to provide a realistic assessment of what is at stake

Implement An Incident Response Program • Refer back to the assessments you did at beginning • Define policy and procedures for incident handling • Put together the response team • Monitor your network and critical hosts for evidence of intrusions and compromises • Detect, respond, manage and mitigate (damages) incidents • Roll what you learn back into the Annual Plans

Start a Security Awareness Program • Teach, motivate, inspire… • Use real-world examples to your benefit • Variety is key—websites, newsletter articles, classes, posters, seminars • Spread the word through personally visiting and engaging college staff and faculty • Provide a service to your user community

Integrate Information Security into the Business and Academic Processes of the Institution • Conduct information security audits of departments • Be involved in system implementations, organizational changes, process re-engineering • Use a strategic layered approach to implement new security measures

A Ten Step Approach to Developing an Information Security Program