A Comprehensive Guide to Security Planning
What is Security Planning?
Security Planning can be defined as the process for any organisation to undertake the following:
- Identification of Potential Threats to their assets and people
- Development of a plan to reduce risks for all threats identified
A Good security plan needs to provide a clear roadmap for proactive management of all security concerns for people, buildings, information and other key assets for your business. One needs to ensure that there is sufficient buy-in from senior management and key personnel. A good security plan needs to include anything and everything that supports your priority areas such as supporting functions and resources
Key Elements of a Robust Security Plan
Risk Assessment
Before commencement of planning, spend some time conversing with all stakeholders in identification of following:
- Identifying potential threats and vulnerabilities
- Pay higher emphasis on insider threats
- Analysing the likelihood and impact of each risk.
- Understanding the business impact of potential security breaches.
Once your risks have been identified, develop a metric to understand the impact a security breach can have on your business such as harm inflicted, business and asset loss, compromises and threat to people. Once done, you would arrived at a Business Impact Level (BIL) score, that aids in accurately reflecting the impact of security risks on your business.
You need to carefully consider how to classify and protect against each risk, keeping in mind the impact on your business.
Security Measures
Once your risks have been identified, you need to proceed ahead to the next stage i.e. Security measures to mitigate your risk During development of measures, ensure that your plan includes the following:
- Implementation of physical security controls, such as access control systems, surveillance, and perimeter protection.
- Development of information security policies and procedures to protect sensitive data.
- Establishment of clear roles and responsibilities within your business for security management.
- Continuous security awareness training to all employees and contractors.
Security measures needs to ensure that they provide sufficient delay to allow for planned responses to spring into action. Ensure that your plan covers the following key areas:
- Security Governance
- Security Personnel
- Information Protection
- Physical Assets protection
- Safety of Employees and Contractors
Business Continuity Planning
When faced with a security breach, your business has to maintain delivery of your products or services as per your pre-defined levels. To ensure minimal impact to your business, it is recommended to develop a Business Continuity Plan
The Plan developed needs to ensure the following:
- Ensure that critical business functions can continue operating during and after a disruption.
- Establish incident response procedures to handle security incidents effectively and in a timely manner
The plans developed need to document the procedures for responding to any disruptions such as natural events, resource loss, and security threats. The plan needs to be:
- Simple
- Straightforward
- Solve the problem at hand
- User-Friendly You can develop simple templates and checklist as it ensures that the plan is accessible to everyone
Continuous Improvement
A plan is highly dependent on the context during its development. In ever changing dynamics, even robust plans can be rendered ineffective if no process to continuously improve is implemented.
Always ensure that:
- You regularly review and update security plans and procedures, addressing emerging threats and vulnerabilities.
- Undertake security audits and exercises that test the effectiveness of your security measures.
- Continuous training for all personnel on how to handle disruption via mock drills that lets you test, assess, practice and improve your plan
- Security Exercises help you in validation of assumptions made during planning stage
- Security Exercises aid in identification of issues, gaps and develop capability for your response team
Conclusion
A Well crafter security plan is an essential safeguard for your business success in the long run. By adopting the process outlined above, you are able to secure your business against potential security threats without any worried. The cornerstone for any effective security strategy is continuous improvement. Ensure that you regularly review, update, and test your plan.
Investing in the security of your site ensures safety of not only your employees and assets but also your customers. Always remember that a secure business is a thriving business.
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