Sail Through Information Security Risks with Effective RMF Today’s information security scene is highly volatile with technology acting as a double-edged sword. On one hand, it brings forth advancements that make it easy to execute business processes successfully. While, on the other hand, technology becomes a pawn in the hands of the hackers who use the very same technology to cause wide scale disruption. With information being the lifeblood of every enterprise, every company needs to take data protection initiatives to defend information from being accessed, used, disclosed, disrupted, modified, perused, inspected, recorded or destructed. Due to the ever-growing number of risks to information security, different countries have come up with different laws and regulations to curb the information security risks. These include UK’s Data protection Act and the Computer Misuse Act, and USA’s FERPA, HIPAA, GLBA, SOX, PCI DSS, and PIPEDA acts. The ever-increasing information security risks, the introduction of new regulations and the necessity of meeting compliance mandates make it necessary to put in place compliance and risk management frameworks. Risk Management Framework (RMF) Overview The risk management framework is a structured process that combines information security and risk management activities to ensure security and privacy of information throughout its lifecycle, from creation, processing, storage, and transfer, to archival and disposal. A leading provider of information risk management services offers an integrated security and/or privacy network that connects information security governance, risk and compliance management. A six-part process, it helps to: Establish an IS strategy in alignment with business goals, trends in security and privacy landscape and prevailing priorities. Establish a security and/or privacy governance structure; depending on the maturity and situation, these may be independent structures. Integrate governance, risk and compliance management processes. Establish the assurance processes (audits, security and/or privacy assessments). Automate the GRC processes and integrate with other business/business support applications. Manage the implementation and day-to-day operations of the framework. Recently for a National ID Project for 1.2 billion, the leading service provider took the challenge of designing a GRC framework that not only looks at internal compliance but also the compliance of the vendor/service provider’s ecosystem throughout the lifecycle. Considering
the sheer complexity, size and scale of the ecosystem, with thousands of enrolling agencies, utility and service providers authenticating with the system, it was definitely a big challenge. However, the service provider easily sailed through by designing a risk management framework using a combination of best practices and legal requirements. Thus, when risks to information security increase rapidly, enterprises need to deploy effective measures to sail through it easily. Read more on - Identity Information Management, Privileged Identity Management Solutions