IT Security Policy

A cybersecurity policy is critical to the safety of an organization. A policy establishes guidelines for an organization, and makes expectations clear for every employee of the organization. It is important that these guidelines are clear, and concise. This helps and end user understand what is expected out of them, and what they should expect from their IT security department. When building a cybersecurity policy one must keep in mind any potential situations and address them in the policy (Easttom, 2012). This helps build a strong and secure network that protects the information an organization has access to.
Building a Successful Cybersecurity Policy To build a successful cybersecurity policy an organization must address all potential …show more content…
The policy should be clear and concise so the target audience can understand it (“The IT Security Policy Guide”, n.d., pg. 5). A security policy should have these specific ingredients: an overview, a purpose, scope, the target audience, policies, definitions, and the version (“The IT Security Policy Guide”, n.d., pg. 6). The overview will explain the information the policies will address, and the purpose explains the reason for the security policy (“The IT Security Policy Guide”, n.d., pg. 6). The scope should cover what the policy will address, and the target audience will explain who the policy is made for (“The IT Security Policy Guide”, n.d., pg. 6). The policies will cover all of the security policies an organization has decided to adopt. This may include an Acceptable Use Policy, an Authentication Policy, and an Incident Response Policy (“The IT Security Policy Guide”, n.d., pg. 6). The definition section explains information …show more content…
Users must be educated on policy and there must be a training session on security awareness for all users in the organization (“The IT Security Policy Guide”, n.d., pg. 9). Further, users should have to sign a copy of the policy establishing that they have reviewed the policy (“The IT Security Policy Guide”, n.d., pg. 9). User understanding is vital to the ongoing success of a security policy. The end user is the biggest threat to the organization, and they must understand what is expected out of them to protect the organization. To further protect the ongoing success of the security policy, the policy must be reviewed and updated on a regular basis. The person within the organization that is given ownership of maintaining the policy must do so. A process should be put in place that will review the policy at specific times throughout the years, and when there is a change within the organization (“The IT Security Policy Guide”, n.d., pg. 9). After all changes are made, the version should be updated, and all employees should get a copy of the new policy (“The IT Security Policy Guide”, n.d., pg.