TABLE OF CONTENTS How are you going to respond to the continual security threats aimed at your network? Where do you start? In the simplest sense, you start at the top: You must have top management support both inside and out of IT for the security effort. With management support in place, you can be proactive, developing security policies and procedures before they are needed.
Implementing a security scheme for an organization costs money, whether it involves purchasing hardware and software, hiring personnel, training users, retraining IT staff, realigning IT staff responsibilities, or any combination of the preceding. Those expenditures have to be allocated by someone, and it s much easier to obtain the necessary funds if the top management in your organization is behind your security efforts.
In addition to obtaining the support you need, there is another important reason to ensure that top management is behind security policies and procedures: Top management personnel have access to the most sensitive information in the company, yet they are the least likely to pay attention to security. If you can make top managers stakeholders in the security process, they are much more likely to follow security procedures.
Finally, having top management support ensures that the corporate legal department is involved in security planning and implementation. This will make it much more likely that the organization s data security adheres to any relevant legal statutes.
How can you get top managers to share your concern for network security? There are...
