Ads by TechWords

See your link here
Receive the latest technology news and information.
Security
Computerworld Daily News (First Look and Wrap-Up)
Computerworld Blogs Newsletter
The Weekly Top 10
Cloud Computing
View all newsletters




Privacy Policy
 

The Annual Checkup

September 9, 2002 12:00 PM ET

Computerworld - While automated assessment tools and application services can help keep networks running with minimal exposure, they're no substitute for an annual security audit by trained security staff, says Allen Carey, information security analyst at IDC, a Framingham, Mass.-based research firm.
Automated tools fail to take into account people, processes, best practices, physical security and other components of a comprehensive risk assessment sweep across a large organization, says Bill Ferguson, a partner at Tatum CIO Partners LLP, a Pittsburgh-based outsourcer of CIO consulting services. "When we do an audit, we look at 21 factors," says Ferguson. To help companies conduct more comprehensive audits of their own, he suggests that the following points be audited in a companywide assessment:
• Security policy and accountability for its enforcement
• Risk assessment against critical information assets
• Account management and access controls
• Authentication
• Configuration and change management
• Session controls
• Network security, Internet access policies and network services
• Cryptographic technologies for transmission and storage
• Modems
• System administration
• Incident response
• Auditing
• Viruses
• Contingency planning
• Backups
• Maintenance
• Labeling (is sensitive information clearly defined and labeled?)
• Media sanitizing and disposal
• Physical security
• Personnel security
• Training and awareness



Jump to comments

Security

Additional Resources

WHITE PAPER
Approximately 60 percent of data migration projects overrun time or budget, while some fail completely. Download this white paper, "Enhancing Your Chance for Successful Data Migration," to learn the critical steps you need to take to execute a data migration project with minimum cost and risk to your business.
WHITE PAPER
Read the Gartner research note to learn why the TCO of a server-based computing deployment used to deliver all applications to users is around 50% lower than that of an unmanaged desktop deployment.
WHITE PAPER
Economic downturns have a tendency to accelerate emerging technologies, boost the adoption of effective solutions, and punish solutions that are not cost competitive or that are out of synch with industry trends. This IDC White Paper presents the results of an IDC survey of 330 companies in Western Europe, Asia/Pacific and the Americas that measures the receptiveness to Linux and takes into consideration changing views driven by the disruptive economic environment that businesses face today.

White Papers & Webcasts

Share our Strength
Download Now  

Managing Secure File Transfer to Save Time, Money and IT Resources
Learn how companies are using innovative technology to overcome these challenges and improve user productivity by offloading e-mail attachments and replacing FTP with...

Security Convergence Equals Network Security Cost Savings
Listen to IBM Internet Security Systems' take on network security convergence.

Disaster Recovery 2008: Reduced Costs and Improved Performance
How long can your Enterprise afford to be without your data? With an accelerated disaster recovery program, you never have to answer this...