Information Security Management

Abstract

Information security management is the framework for ensuring the effectiveness of information security controls over information resources to ensure no repudiation, authenticity, confidentiality, integrity and availability of the information. Organizations need a systematic approach for information security management that addresses security consistently at every level. However, the security infrastructure of most organizations came about through necessity rather than planning, a reactive-based approach as opposed to a proactive approach (Gordon, Loeb & Lucyshyn, 2003). Intrusion detection systems, firewalls, anti-virus software, virtual private networks, encryption and biometrics are security technologies in use today. Many devices and systems generate hundreds of events and report various problems or symptoms. Also, these devices may all come at different times and from different vendors, with different reporting and management capabilities and—perhaps worst of all—different update schedules. The security technologies are not integrated, and each technology provides the information in its own format and meaning. In addition, these systems across versions, product lines and vendors may provide little or no consistent characterization of events that represent the same symptom. Also, the systems are not efficient and scalable because they rely on human expertise to analyze periodically the data collected with all these systems. Network administrators regularly have to query different databases for new vulnerabilities and apply patches to their systems to avoid attacks. Quite often, different security staff is responsible and dedicated for the monitoring and analysis of data provided by a single system. Security staff does not periodically analyze the data and does not timely communicate analysis reports to other staff. The tools employed have very little impact on security prevention, because these systems lack the capability to generalize, learn and adapt in time.