Effective storage security policies

For starters, you need to perform a formal risk analysis on your storage systems. This can be done internally or part of a larger information risk assessment performed by an outside expert. If you take this project on yourself, be sure to lean on existing methodologies instead of re-inventing the wheel. The bottom line is that you've got to know which risks are present in your storage systems and which ones would have the greatest impact and likelihood of occurrence before you can implement the appropriate policies and supporting controls.

Once you determine which risks are present (and there will certainly be some), you can create policies to help with mitigation and control. The policies that you create can be storage-specific or apply across the board in your organization. In other words, you may have one or more policies that only apply to your storage systems or you can integrate your requirements into higher level security policies that apply to your entire organization. The latter is the preferred method since it's higher-level and can integrate well with other security poli

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In order to stay organized and keep things simple, you'll need to have a standard security policy template. This will make policy creation and maintenance so much simpler in the long-term than simply bundling everything into one large and unorganized document. The security template located here works well for all security policies.

Now it's time to create your actual policies. Remember -- create policies based on risks discovered and business needs. However, the following policies should be on your radar as they all relate to storage security in one way or another:

Once your policies are documented and implemented, don't let all of your diligent efforts be in vain. Work with management, and ideally an organization-wide security or IT governance committee, to make sure these policies are approved, well-accepted, properly maintained and, most importantly, actually enforced.

About the Author
Kevin Beaver is an independent information security consultant, author and speaker with Atlanta-based Principle Logic, LLC. He has more than 18 years of experience in IT and specializes in performing information security assessments.

This tip originally appeared on SearchStorage.com

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