Can you imagine having your company's confidential data leaked? To avoid the chances of this happening, it is essential to bet on the creation of an information security policy.
To reduce risk in the IT environment, you need to refocus data access, ensuring effective actions that protect information.
With this, it is possible to reduce the occurrence of security breaches that are caused by malice, lack of guidance or negligence.
Do you want to know more about this subject and how to design an ideal information security policy for your company? So, read on!
What is the information security policy?
Also known as PSI, the information security policy refers to a document or manual that reveals a set of actions, practices and techniques aimed at data security.
Thus, it generally guides employees to know how to behave, what should and should not be done in relation to the use of information.
With this, the PSI manages to direct and establish the organization's guidelines regarding data protection, being applied in the most different areas of the company.
In this sense, PSI encompasses the following aspects:
- behavior patterns regarding information security;
- access restriction;
- monitoring;
- control;
- forms of protection;
- conditions of equipment installations.
Thus, the information security policy manages to preserve the confidentiality, availability and integrity of data.
It is worth noting that the ABNT NBR ISO/IEC 27001:2005 standard, recognized around the world, is a benchmark in information security management, serving to guide the preparation of the PSI.
Other than that, it is important that this document is in line with the legislation of our country.
How to create an information security policy?
We have already advanced some data regarding the elaboration of the PSI, but, to make it even easier, we stipulated aspects that cannot be left out when creating the information security policy. Check out!
Choose responsible collaborators
Before starting to prepare the document, you should be responsible for choosing who will create it, as well as being responsible for dissemination, review and monitoring.
There are organizations that prefer to organize a committee headed by the CIO, bearing in mind that other directors, such as those from the finance and human resources area, must participate in the preparation to verify that the document is in accordance with the organization's guidelines and needs.
Carry out a previous diagnosis
To make an efficient PSI, you need to list your company's information assets, because that's the only way to know what data needs to be protected.
In this way, you can see what devices are used in the organization, how people behave in relation to them, what data is protected and the level of access of employees.
With this, you recognize what are the main needs of the company regarding information security.
Sort the types of information
After making a preliminary diagnosis, it's time to categorize the information that needs to be protected.
In this case, it is necessary to classify them as internal, public, confidential and secret. Remember that this categorization will vary from company to company.
Through the classification, it will be possible to define the access levels of the collaborators, applications that must be implemented to improve security and formulate what impacts can occur in the organization if a data leak occurs.
Set access levels
To define the access levels, you must consider three fundamental factors, which are:
- who accesses: the position or persons with a specific function to access the data must be entered;
- how to access: the means by which the person can access the data, that is, what is the system and device;
- when accessing: definition of the time at which it is allowed to access data, for example, only during office hours or if at home is also possible.
Describe the defense technologies used against cyber attacks
So that everyone is aware of the technological means to protect data from cyber attacks, you need to describe the defense mechanisms used, which can be:
- firewall;
- access controls;
- backup;
- network monitoring;
- auditing;
- cryptography.
Use the three basic principles of security
The three pillars of information security are confidentiality, availability and integrity.
The first concerns data access only by authorized persons.
The second indicates that the information needs to be available, according to the request, to those authorized.
Finally, the third party reveals that only authorized persons can modify the information.
By following these three fundamental aspects, the set of actions contained in the PSI become more effective.
Indicate the consequences for violating the rules
After writing all the data protection guidelines, you need to highlight what the consequences are if the rules are not followed.
In this case, it is important to remember that punishments must be based on intentional or accidental actions. Therefore, they can range from a warning to a fair dismissal.
Even so, this formalization needs to be in the document to precede the administrative measures.
It is important that the consequences are very clear to everyone, because, in the event of an incident, everyone already knows what sanctions will be taken.
Communicate the result
After finalizing the preparation of the document, you should communicate this to everyone, also pointing out the practices that need to be followed and what should be avoided.
In some cases, it is worth investing in training with the objective of fixing the information in the minds of employees, as well as predicting the consequences of non-compliance with the rules.
This will allow them to become more experienced in the subject, which prevents them from making mistakes due to a lack of practical knowledge.
By following all these steps, you are able to plan and design an information security policy that will maximize your company's data protection.
In this way, you will avoid employee incidents and problems such as information leaks caused by cyber attacks, which could directly compromise the health of your business by exposing confidential data.
In addition to getting to know the information security policy better, it is worth betting on a good information architecture. Learn more about this topic in this post!
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