The purpose of ISO 27001 standard is to preserve the CIA of critical business information. CIA stands for –
- Confidentiality – Limiting the information access and disclosure to authorized users only and to prevent access and disclosure to unauthorized users.
- Integrity – Maintaining and assuring the consistency and the accuracy of information over its entire lifecycle. It is a critical aspect to the design, implementation and usage of any system which stores, processes and/or retrieves critical data.
- Availability – Refers to the availability of information resources. An information system that isn’t available when you need it, is almost as bad as none. It may be even worse, depending on how reliant the organization has become on a functioning computer and communications infrastructure.
Every organization’s employees are using smartphones for both personal and official purposes. So, what happens if an employee loses their mobile phone somewhere outside office premises and that mobile phone is in the hands of a stranger who can possibly get a hold of your company information.
How can you protect critical data and information assets in such incidents?
To protect your organization’s critical data and information assets when such incidents occur, you must implement different security controls such as;
- Security Policy and Procedure
- Strong Password and/or Biometric Authentication
- Strong Encryption
- Transfer Risk
- Awareness Training
Security policy and procedure:
An organization should create security policies and procedures which clearly states about potential security incidents. These policies and procedures should explain what steps an employee must do so that he or she never misplaces or leaves his or her mobile devices unattended.
Strong password and/or biometric authentication:
An organization should make sure that every mobile device has a strong password that is only known to its owner. Also, to enforce biometric authentication if applicable. Therefore, it will ensure if your mobile device is stolen, then no one could access the information inside the particular device.
Strong encryption:
An organization should make sure that all their data such as files and folders have strong encryption. It will ensure that if your employees’ mobile devices get stolen or misplaced, then the data inside that particular device is not compromised. Although the device’s password is compromised, because of strong encryption methods enforced on the device the information cannot be accessed by anyone else.
Transfer risk:
When appropriate, an organization can buy adequate insurance policies to cover any damage that may arise due to any loss or theft of any of the assets like mobile devices.
Awareness training:
It really doesn’t matter what an organization has in place when it comes to security policy and procedure. However, it is very essential that all the employees in the organization are properly trained on all the existing security policies and procedures.
The best way to protect an organization’s critical data is to make sure that their employees are aware of the potential risks to data contained in their mobile devices, and what each employee must do to safeguard the information contained in their mobile devices.
How to manage an organization’s critical data?
In order to manage an organization’s critical information effectively, an organization must understand the following;
- Managing information security is not just about managing hardware devices.
- An organization must have adequate policies, procedures, security tools and necessary security awareness training for employees.
- An organization must have their logical security, physical security, human resources, compliance, legal and all other business processes working together to deliver effective security controls.
- An organization needs to implement an end-to-end Information Security Management System (ISMS).
What does an ISO 27001 standard provide?
The ISO 27001 ISMS standard provides an effective framework for Information Security Management best practice that helps organizations the following;
- Protect client’s and employees’ information and manage risks to information security effectively in a systematic and verifiable way.
- Achieve information security compliance.
- Achieve enhanced customer and trading partner confidence.
- Protect the organization’s brand image and reputation.
- Reduce the overall cost of delivering services to customers.
The only way to protect what you’ve worked hard to build is to be vigilant when it comes to cybersecurity. If you’d like to know more about how your business can benefit from managed services, just give us a call, we are here to help.
The purpose of ISO 27001 standard is to preserve the CIA of critical business information. CIA stands for – Confidentiality Integrity Availability.
