Building an effective Information Security Roadmap
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Elliott Franklin discusses the evolving role of information security leaders, emphasizing the need for effective communication and strategic planning within organizations. Key components for success include a clear information security strategy, direct reporting to leadership, regular reviews, and flexibility in operations. The document outlines a structured approach to assessing risks, developing policies, educating stakeholders, and measuring security effectiveness to align with business objectives.
Building an effective Information Security Roadmap
- 1. Creating an Effective Security Roadmap Elliott Franklin, CISSP, CISM
- 2. Who Am I? • 15 Yrs in IT • 9 Yrs in Info Sec • 7 Yrs in Mgmt • Alamo ISSA • San Antonio Security Leaders Forum • Texas CISO Council • @elliottfranklin
- 3. Standard Disclaimer These are my own thoughts
- 5. Mission Impossible • Info Sec roles continue to expand • The CISO faces a new test of leadership – Planning and Communication are essential • Manage the crucial links between – information security – operational performance – brand protection – shareholder value
- 6. What is Changing? • 53% of CISOs now report to C-level execs • 74% of CISOs struggled to balance strategy and operations in 2012 – “If I need to do strategic planning, I need to come in during the weekends because ops takes 100% of my time”
- 7. To be an informa,on security leader, companies need: 1. An informa,on security strategy 2. A chief security officer who reports directly to organiza,onal leadership 3. An annual measurement and review process 4. An understanding of past security events
- 8. Types of Security Organizations • Operations-focused • Governance, Risk and Strategy-focused
- 9. Ops Focused • Limited business interaction • Deploying, managing and monitoring security tools • Vulnerability and Threat Management • Anti-malware • Encryption • Firewalls • Blocking and tackling
- 10. Risk, Governance and Strategy • Supports business objectives • Relationship management • Manages security priorities • Forward looking • Anticipates threats and business needs
- 11. What Works? • A Flexible Organization with a Centralized Core – Security Oversight – Information Risk – Security Architecture and Engineering – Security Operations
- 12. Corporate Culture • What do your executives expect from security? • If not strategy, then focus on operations • Build trust and demonstrate value • Reporting Inside or Outside IT? • Centralized or Decentralized?
- 13. Mind Shift
- 14. Start with the ABC’s • Assess your assets, risks, resources • Build your policy • Choose your controls • Deploy the controls • Educate employees, execs, vendors • Further assess, audit, test *From welivesecurity.com
- 15. Assess, Risks and Resources • What are you protecting? – What is important to the business? • What are the main threats to these systems/data? • Who can help you? – Never enough resources – Leverage Others
- 16. Assess, Risks and Resources • Fraud – How could business processes, manual or automated be exploited? • Physical Security – 32% of CISOs cover both • Now is the time to pick a framework – One that covers all regulations
- 17. Build your Policy • Policies – AUP – BYOD – Passwords – Vendors/Cloud Providers • Procedures – Patching – Anti-Virus – Group Policies • Screensaver Timeout
- 18. Controls to enforce policies • “Log all access to data by unique identifier” – Requires log management or SIEM • “Limit access to specific data to specific individuals” – Require unique system username and password • “Sensitive data shall not be emailed outside the organization” – DLP or email encryption system
- 19. Deploy and test controls • A phased approach – DLP – Email Encryption • Test not only if the solution works technically but also that it does not impose too great a burden on employees or processes
- 20. Educate employees, vendors, etc • What are our policies? • How to comply? • Consequences of failure to comply
- 21. Further assess, audit, test… • Once policies, controls and education are under way, it’s time to re-assess • Audit • Monitor change control • New vendor relationships • Marketing initiatives • Employee terminations
- 22. Common Approach • A top 10 list based on Gartner and Trustwave • Death by PowerPoint, Of course • One per slide • No business input • Present to executive leadership multiple times – Review and revise quarterly
- 23. Strategic Planning • Determine the direction of the business • Understand security's current position – What do we do? – For whom do we do it? – How do we excel?
- 24. Definitions • Vision – A descriptive picture of a desired future state – “Where do we want to be?” • Objectives – High-level achievement • “Improve customer loyalty” • “Grow market share” • Goals – Anything that is measured to help fulfill an objective
- 25. Definitions • Strategies – Those actions we implement on a day-to-day basis to achieve our objectives • Projects – The concrete actions a business takes to execute its strategic plan • Capabilities – An organization’s ability, by virtue of its IT assets, to create business value
- 26. Start with Vision To provide advanced information security services and expert security guidance to all members of the Harvard community and to ensure confidentiality, integrity, and availability of the information assets and resources according to University Enterprise Security Policy, State and Federal laws.
- 27. Build Top-Down
- 30. Objectives • Maintain Information Security Policy • Build and Maintain a Secure Network • Protect Customer and Corporate Data • Implement Strong Access Control Measures
- 32. Goals • Reduced time to investigate security incidents • Maintain 90% compliance for all systems • Audit 25% of information security policies • Reduce number of security incidents caused by employees • Reduce time required to create new user accounts • Maintain 80% coverage of critical security patch installation within 30 days of release
- 34. Strategy • Multiple projects can point to a single strategy – Actively monitor and audit logs, threats and incidents – Make security easy to use and understand – Implement strong identity and access management – Create a layered security architecture
- 36. Projects • SIEM • Vulnerability & Threat Mgmt • Policy & Procedures Review • Security Awareness • Identity & Access Mgmt • Incident Management
- 38. Capabilities • Log Monitoring • Intrusion Detection • Access Management • Identity Management • Remote Access • Architecture Review • Data Loss Prevention
- 40. Next Steps…
- 41. Meaningful Metrics • Security metrics need to demonstrate business alignment • Are we more secure today than yesterday? – Number of machines reimaged – Number of phishing attempts blocked • How do we compare to our peers? • Not limited to what your tools provide • Ask the business
- 42. Effective Metrics • Consistently measured – Benchmarks and opportunities for continuous improvement • Cheap to gather – If metrics are expensive to gather, they will not be gathered • Use numbers that show relationships – Are these numbers relevant to decision makers? • Show trends • Pretty graphs!
- 43. Any Good News? • 80% of attacks rely on exploits that we can readily defend against – Focus on security awareness – Properly maintained IT Infrastructure – Effective monitoring • 15% of the attacks can be mitigated with a solid security strategy • 5% are Sophisticated/Nation State * Key Findings from the 2013 US State of Cybercrime Survey - PWC
- 44. Critical for a Competitive Posture • Information security now plays a critical role in enabling the exchange of sensitive information • What are your competitors doing in this space? • “If you can’t talk ROI, the boardroom isn’t listening” • Transforming from asset guardian to strategic business enabler
- 45. Call to Action Stay Flexible Assess Risk Begin with the business’s plan
- 46. Resources • Forrester – Building A Strategic Security Program And Organization – April 2013 – Information Security Metrics – Present Information that Matters to the Business – July 2011 • PWC – Key findings from the 2013 US State of Cybercrime Survey – June 2013 – How to align security with your strategic business objectives • ESET – Cyber security road map for businesses – May 2013