Issues to cover in a security policy
James Michael Stewart
The security policy of an organization drives the entire structure of physical, administrative and technical security deployed. Without a thorough security policy defining what should be done, the results of the haphazard deployment of security controls will be woefully insufficient.
There are at least ten areas of concern that an organization's security policy should address. I've borrowed these ten areas from the CISSP Common Body of Knowledge (CBK). The CISSP or Certified Information Systems Security Professional is a security certification offered by (ISC)2 (
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Michael S. Mimoso, Editorial Director
www.isc2.org). Even if you don't want to pursue the certification, I highly recommend reviewing the CBK assembled for this exam.
The ten areas are:
- Access Control Systems & Methodology
- Applications & Systems Development
- Business Continuity Planning
- Cryptography
- Law, Investigation & Ethics
- Operations Security
- Physical Security
- Security Architecture & Models
- Security Management Practices
- Telecommunications, Network & Internet Security
Your security policy should address each of these areas specifically and distinctly. Otherwise, your policy is incomplete and the resultant security scheme deployed by your organization probably has significant gaps that can be exploited.
About the author
James Michael Stewart is a researcher and writer for Lanwrights, Inc.
This was first published in April 2002