As you can tell, the definitions of security governance are often rather stilted and high level. Ultimately, security governance is the implementation of a security solution and a management method that are tightly interconnected. Security governance directly oversees and gets involved in all levels of security. Security is not and should not be treated as an IT issue only. Instead, security affects every aspect of an organization. It is no longer just something the IT staff can handle on their own. Security is a business operations issue. Security is an organizational process, not just something the IT geeks do behind the scenes. Using the term security governance is an attempt to emphasize this point by indicating that security needs to be managed and governed throughout the organization, not just in the IT department.
Security management planning ensures proper creation, implementation, and enforcement of a security policy. Security management planning aligns the security functions to the strategy, goals, mission, and objectives of the organization. This includes designing and implementing security based on a business case, budget restrictions, or scarcity of resources. A business case is usually a documented argument or stated position in order to define a need to make a decision or take some form of action. To make a business case is to demonstrate a business-specific need to alter an existing process or choose an approach to a business task. A business case is often made to justify the start of a new project, especially a project related to security. It is also important to consider the budget that can be allocated to a business need–based security project. Security can be expensive, but it is often an essential element of reliable and long-term business operation. In most organizations, money and resources, such as people, technology, and space, are limited. Due to resource limitations like these, the maximum benefit needs to be obtained from any endeavor.
One of the most effective ways to tackle security management planning is to use a top-down approach. Upper, or senior, management is responsible for initiating and defining policies for the organization. Security policies provide direction for all levels of the organization’s hierarchy. It is the responsibility of middle management to flesh out the security policy into standards, baselines, guidelines, and procedures. The operational managers or security professionals must then implement the configurations prescribed in the security management documentation. Finally, the end users must comply with all the security policies of the organization.
The opposite of the top-down approach is the bottom-up approach. In a bottom-up approach environment, the IT staff makes security decisions directly without input from senior management. The bottom-up approach is rarely used in organizations and is considered problematic in the IT industry.
Security management is a responsibility of upper management, not of the IT staff, and is considered a business operations issue rather than an IT administration issue. The team or department responsible for security within an organization should be autonomous. The information security (InfoSec) team should be led by a designated chief security officer (CSO) who must report directly to senior management. Placing the autonomy of the CSO and the CSO’s team outside the typical hierarchical structure in an organization can improve security management across the entire organization. It also helps to avoid cross-department and internal political issues.
Elements of security management planning include defining security roles; prescribing how security will be managed, who will be responsible for security, and how security will be tested for effectiveness; developing security policies; performing risk analysis; and requiring security education for employees. These efforts are guided through the development of management plans.
The best security plan is useless without one key factor: approval by senior management. Without senior management’s approval of and commitment to the security policy, the policy will not succeed. It is the responsibility of the policy development team to educate senior management sufficiently so it understands the risks, liabilities, and exposures that remain even after security measures prescribed in the policy are deployed. Developing and implementing a security policy is evidence of due care and due diligence on the part of senior management. If a company does not practice due care and due diligence, managers can be held liable for negligence and held accountable for both asset and financial losses.
A security management planning team should develop three types of plans, as shown in Figure 1.3.
Figure 1.3 Strategic, tactical, and operational plan timeline comparison
Strategic Plan A strategic plan is a long-term plan that is fairly stable. It defines the organization’s security purpose. It also helps to understand security function and align it to goals, mission, and objectives of the organization. It’s useful for about five years if it is maintained and updated annually. The strategic plan also serves as the planning horizon. Long-term goals and visions for the future are discussed in a strategic plan. A strategic plan should include a risk assessment.
Tactical plan The tactical plan is a midterm plan developed to provide more details on accomplishing the goals set forth in the strategic plan or can be crafted ad-hoc based upon unpredicted events. A tactical plan is typically useful for about a year and often prescribes and schedules the tasks necessary to accomplish organizational goals. Some examples of tactical plans are project plans, acquisition plans, hiring plans, budget plans, maintenance plans, support plans, and system development plans.
Operational Plan An operational plan is a short-term, highly detailed plan based on the strategic and tactical plans. It is valid or useful only for a short time. Operational plans must be updated often (such as monthly or quarterly) to retain compliance with tactical plans. Operational plans spell out how to accomplish the various goals of the organization. They include resource allotments, budgetary requirements, staffing assignments, scheduling, and step-by-step or implementation procedures. Operational plans include details on how the implementation processes are in compliance with the organization’s security policy. Examples of operational plans are training plans, system deployment plans, and product design plans.
Security is a continuous process. Thus, the activity of security management planning may have a definitive initiation point, but its tasks and work are never fully accomplished or complete. Effective security plans focus attention on specific and achievable objectives, anticipate change and potential problems, and serve as a basis for decision making for the entire organization. Security documentation should be concrete, well defined, and clearly stated. For a security plan to be effective, it must be developed, maintained, and actually used.
Security governance needs to address every aspect of an organization. This includes the organizational processes of acquisitions, divestitures, and governance committees. Acquisitions and mergers place an organization at an increased level of risk. Such risks include inappropriate information disclosure, data loss, downtime, or failure to achieve sufficient return on investment (ROI). In addition to all the typical business and financial aspects of mergers and acquisitions, a healthy dose of security oversight and increased scrutiny is often essential to reduce the likelihood of losses during such a period of transformation.
Similarly, a divestiture or any form of asset or employee reduction is another time period of increased risk and thus increased need for focused security governance. Assets need to be sanitized to prevent data leakage. Storage media should be removed and destroyed, because media sanitization techniques do not guarantee against data remnant recovery. Employees released from duty need to be debriefed. This process is often called an exit interview. This process usually involves reviewing any nondisclosure agreements as well as any other binding contracts or agreements that will continue after employment has ceased.
Often, security governance is managed by a governance committee or at least a board of directors. This is the group of influential knowledge experts whose primary task is to oversee and guide the actions of security and operations for an organization. Security is a complex task. Organizations are often large and difficult to