Next read this Third-party, fourth-party risk and vendor risk … Benefiting from security policy templates without financial and reputational risks. An updated and current security policy ensures that sensitive information can only be accessed by authorized users. A thorough and practical Information Security Policy is essential to a business, its importance is only growing with the growing size of a business and the impending security threats. Creating an effective security policy and taking steps to ensure compliance is a critical step to prevent and mitigate security … The Importance of an Information Security Policy. Define who the information security policy applies to and who it does not apply to. The scary part is that many organizations often have minimal access management structures in place or they believe they are managing their access rights correctly, when they may actually not be. In Information Security Risk Assessment Toolkit, 2013. Data management that includes security policies, training and awareness programs, technology maintenance, and regular systems and response testing is required. IT Security policies and procedures are necessary and often required for organizations to have in place to comply with various Federal, State, and Industry regulations (PCI Compliance, HIPAA Compliance, etc.) An information security strategic plan can position an organization to mitigate, transfer, accept or avoid information risk related to people, processes and technologies. For all the talk about technology, many IT professionals feel security comes down to one unavoidable factor – the end user. A well-placed policy could cover various ends of the business, keeping information/data and other important documents safe from a breach. Information security compliance can be a burden on enterprises, but ignoring it is not an option unless you want to pay the price. Policies are the foundation for your security and compliance program so make sure they are done right the first time, you may not get a second chance. Without proper access management, security risks are high, and it is easy lose track of who has access to what, easily leading to a security breach. You may be tempted to say that third-party vendors are not included as part of your information security policy. This may not be a great idea. See part 2 of this series. In the 2015 State of the Endpoint study by Ponemon Institute, researchers found that 78 percent of the 703 people surveyed consider negligent or careless employees who do not follow security policies to be the biggest threat to endpoint security. The study found that 25 percent of the surveyed organizations had no plans to support BYOD, didn’t offer BYOD, or had tried BYOD but abandoned it. 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