Developing Security Policies and Procedures

Policies and procedures are always important, but they are critical for security. You need to create and publish your policies to gain consensus on how you will handle specific security issues and to ensure that everyone clearly understands the policies. Formalized procedures ensure that system maintenance and changes are always done in a well-thought-out manner.

One issue you need to consider is how to monitor for breaches in or attempts to break security. You can minimize breaches and stop attempts to break security if appropriate staff are aware of them as early as possible. This is only possible if monitoring procedures are in place. Well-defined policies help you establish procedures for dealing with these security issues.

Reliability is another important security issue you need to address. Have plans in place for when a component of the security infrastructure fails. Decide the appropriate action for any possible security breach ahead of time, and have resources available to repair the problem as soon as possible.

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