Security
Bank of India aims for BS 25999 certification Bank of India (BOI), one of the largest public sector banks in India with a network of more than 3,000 branches across the country and more than 30 branches and subsidiaries outside the country, is aiming for a certification that has not been achieved by any of its banking peers so far. The Bank is aiming for the BS 25999 certification — a Business Continuity Management standard published by the British Standards Institution (BSI). Over the period of a year, the Bank has systematically set up processes and policies in place to achieve this certification. The scope of the certification consists of more than 40 critical applications hosted in the Data Center and the Treasury function including dealing room and FOREX
operations. The Bank decided to go for the BS 25999 certification to improve its responsiveness to business disruptions. As a part of this exercise, the Bank did a detailed analysis by mapping out the critical applications, the acceptable downtime for the applications, and the possible business impact in the event of an application being unavailable. The real challenge was in communicating effectively to the owners of the applications and business units, about the importance of the BS 25999 certification requirements like periodical business impact assessments, risk assessments and crisis management plans. Accordingly, the Bank started educating all the asset owners. From the list of 40-45 applications, the Bank chose 4-5 applications as model
applications. “These applications served as catalysts and inspired other stakeholders to adhere to best practices to comply with the BS 25999 standard,” states Ratolikar. Earlier there was no governance model and no clear strategy to assess the impact on the business if an application went down. Today, the same can be done effortlessly. “It has taken us close to a year to setup the management system for achieving the BS 25999 certification. The internal audit is already over and outcome is pretty satisfactory . We expect BS25999 lead auditors next week for final audit. If we get the certification, we will be the first bank in the country to receive this prestigious certificate,” says Ratolikar. — Srikanth RP
Social Media
Organizations opening up to social media Fewer than 30 percent of large organizations will block employee access to social media sites by 2014, compared to 50 percent in 2010, according to Gartner. The number of organizations blocking access to social media is dropping by around 10 percent a year. Social media environments include mechanisms to collect, process, share and store a complete range of identity data than IAM systems. They enable a complete view of identity, one that extends beyond the bounds of organizations. For IAM managers, this is both a threat and an opportunity. Identity data and social media platforms can expose organizations and users to a wide variety of security threats, but organizations can also use this identity data to improve support for their own IAM practices and the ambitions of business stakeholders. “Organizations should not ignore social media and social identity,” said Andrew Walls, Research VP, Gartner. “We recommend that organizations ascertain how they currently use internal and external social media in both official and unofficial ways, and look for dissonance between IAM practices and the identity needs, opportunities and risks of social media.” —InformationWeek News Network
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april 2012 i n f o r m at i o n w e e k 13