Essay: Importance Of InfoSec Vendors As Strategic Partners In Security Risk Assessment.

Evaluation of the Importance of Information Security Vendors as Strategic Partner in Reducing the Information Security Risks

Discuss about the Information Security System for Security Risks Assessment.

Information security is one of the most serious concerns relate to the technological advancements (Fritzson et al., 2014). Impact of these security issues not only hampers the daily life of the human being but also it hampers the organizational culture.

In contrast with the organizational overview the role and responsibility of the information security vendor is very important and effective to the organizational structure as well as in case of the organizational development (Peltier, 2013). This aspect introduces role of the information security vendor. This report is elaborating the importance and role of information security vendor in reducing the cyber- risks.

Cyber- risks are getting increased day by day with the increase of technological advancements. The technological world is facing the challenges by the cyber- attacks and it is not only limited to the personal usages, in a broader level most of the giant, small and mid-sized organizations are facing this problem (Booth et al.,  2016). In contrast with this scenario the role of the information security vendor is very crucial who can easily mitigate these risks. Following the specification that are important to be noted as the functionalities of information security vendors:

Cyber-risk mitigation policy: Proactive measures for resolving the information security risks are time taking and costly, therefore the Information security vendors establishes well-documented and robust process for mitigating information security risks (Van Deursen et al., 2013). These policies will help the individual as well as the organizations to resolve their problems. Some of these policies are:

• Identification of the risks related to the cyber security
• Establishment of cyber security governance
• Development of procedures, policies and oversight processes
• Protection of company information and networks
• Identification an addressing of remote access to client information related to risks
• Managing the risk associated with vendors and other third parties
• Detection of unauthorized activity

Evaluation of third party providers: Vendors, consultants and suppliers several times have the access to the company information. These confidential data access should be go through a proper risk assessment technique (Henriksen et al., 2013). This risk assessment process should be conducted for each of the concerned suppliers. The following matters are investigated by the information security vendors to mitigate the chances of risks:

• Use of security wall by the suppliers and vendors of the concerned organization
• Encryption and access to the information
• Customer should be notified that the information is stored in the cloud
• Sensitive information should be kept aside with proper security measures from suppliers and other vendors.

The third party vendors should be careful of the company policies and restriction while accessing the company related information and documents. These data involves: personality identifiable information about employees and customers (Booth et al., 2016). Each third party entry by the vendors should be analyzed with first priority (Peltier, 2016). In addition to this a robust will be helpful to the information security vendors to understand the fraudulent. The information security vendors are one of the crucial part related to organization that cannot be avoided, therefore, they should pay more attention to the policies and measures taken by the organization for mitigating cyber- security risks.

Understanding of Elements Causing Cyber-Risks

Understanding of elements causing cyber-risks: According to the surveys done on the cyber security measures it is clear that most of the organizations are not able to identify the core elements that are also equally responsible for generating the risks (Taylor & Robinson, 2014). These factors are almost psychological and sociological aspects related to the vendors. The risks associated with the system or cyber system are not very much complex to be understood. Information security vendors supplies and donate important factors or elements to their customer organization. In addition to this, their awareness about the security threats happening within the system as well as the critical factors that may affect the entire system related to the IT infrastructure (Hall & McGraw, 2014). Following are the top most root causes of cyber threats: malwares, Errors introduced by the user, attacks by the outsiders, failure from the end of service providers, vulnerabilities caused by mobile devices etc. These above mentioned clauses are followed by the information security vendors in order to assure the secured way of using the information security system.

Developing Confidentiality, Integrity and Availability: Confidentiality, integrity and availability are three core perspectives related to the information security (Von Solms & Van Niekerk, 2013). It is the duty of the information security vendors to maintain the confidentiality, integrity and availability of data related to the information system.

Confidentiality: Confidentiality revolves around the protecting a system. The unauthorized user cannot access all the information related to any organization. This aspect makes the organization feel safer. In this case the information security vendors pay a great role (Boorman et al., 2014). They are the main element through which all the confidential information is leaked out. They introduce they follows specific strategies to maintain these confidentiality of information.

Integrity: Once the tenet of confidentiality is identified then integrity should also be incorporated within the system (Alese et al., 2015). Proper knowledge of data integrity allows the information security vendors to analyze the accurate data in several critical situations. The absence of accurate data within the information security system the entire system cannot provide the right direction to the organization. This aspect leads to poor decision making of the organization with respect to the organizational development (Glisson & Storer, 2013). Therefore, the information security vendor has a great position handling the data integrity within the information security system.  They provide the right information about the system to the organization as well to other vendors.

Developing Confidentiality, Integrity and Availability

Availability: The last stage of the CIA model is availability. This tenet is responsible for stopping the users from accessing the confidential resources of organization (Chang et al., 2014). It is important for judging the effectiveness of any system that it has the capability to deliver the information to the business partners. The information security system incorporates the risk assessment techniques that are helpful for analyzing the risk factors (Ong, 2015). Information security vendor maintains the confidentiality, integrity as well as make the data available to other vendors as well as to the organizational members.

Information security consultants play a great role in analyzing the impact of the risk associated with the system (Fritzson et al., 2014). The above mentioned aspects are some of the crucial roles and responsibilities of the information security consultants in reducing the risk associated with the information security system. Other than these roles and aspects there are other important roles of them within the information security system (Peltier, 2013). These aspects are discussed as follows: Acceptance of regulation, Raising of red flag about power prevention, Implementation of service level agreement, Third party vendor assessment.

Acceptance of regulation: The information security consultants should follow the regulatory measures to prevent the security risks involved within the system.  

Raising of red flag about power prevention: Information security consultants don’t provide access of confidential resources to third party vendors for security purpose (Hackney, 2011).

Implementation of service level agreement: Service level agreements help the information security consultants to restrict the third party vendors from accessing their confidential data.

Third party vendor assessment: The information security consultants provide limited access of organizational resources to the third party vedors.

Following are the detailed explanation of the other important factors in information security risk assessment.

Acceptance of regulation: Organizations provide several safeguards and other security measures to make their system more strong against the cyber- risk issues. Multiple layers of protection are needed to protect the entire system (Booth et al., 2016). In this case the functionality of the information security vendor is to just follow these regulations provided by the organization for their safety measures (Van Deursen et al., 2013). Among these multiple layer some of the important aspects are: encryption of data, authentication of the users etc.

Raising of red flag about power prevention: The misuse of power can also be another problem within the information security system (Henriksen et al., 2013). Information security vendors should prevent the user and other members of the organization from accessing the confidential data related to the organization. In most of the cases the organization doesn’t take care of the chance of beaches. At the time of breaches anyhow they want to put an end to that matter (Peltier, 2016). Red alert against the power prevention measures allows the user as well as third party vendors to be restricted from the confidential and integrated data of the concerned organization.

Four Factors in Reducing Information Security Risks

Implementation of service level agreement: The information security consultants can improvise their service level agreement signed with their third party vendors (Taylor & Robinson, 2014). Basically the SLA is concerned with the regulating measures that are provided by the organization or information security consultants to the third party vendors. The information security consultant checks the compatibility of the SLA with the compliances of the third party vendors (Ghodeswar & Vaidyanathan, 2008). Key factor of the SLA must be covering the following issues: security of the information, privacy support to the information, risk and threat analysis of the information access to the network and data, reporting requirement related to the breach identification and resolution techniques (Hall & McGraw, 2014). These aspects help not only information security consultants but also the organization to understand the importance of the risk management related to the information security breaches.

Third party vendor assessment: Third party hacking is getting increased day by day. There are several types of vendors that require different type access to the data. Come vendors require direct access to the resources of data, whereas some vendors needs the access to a part of system (Von Solms & Van Niekerk, 2013). The second one is not that much harmful as the first one. In the first case the vendor can easily introduce the data theft into the system.

Conclusion

Technological advancements facilitate the in accordance with the daily needs as well as it incorporates several threats and disadvantages to the system. Data theft, malwares within the information system and other aspects related to information security systems are getting increased day by day. These aspects need to be monitored by the organizational heads. According to the context of organizational overview it is clear that the information security consultant plays a great role in reducing the security risks. This report is explaining the importance of information security consultants in this field.

References

Alese, B. K., Oyebade, O., Iyare, O., Festus, O. A., & Thompson, A. F. (2015). A Web based Information Security Risks Assessment Model.

Boorman, J., Liu, Y., Zhang, Y., Bai, Y., Yao, S., Wang, M., & Tai, L. (2014). Implications of social media networks on information security risks.

Booth, R., Richardson, S., & Simon, J. (2016). Security Risks Related to Employee “Extra-Role” Creation of an “Online-persona”.

Chang, C. H., Xu, J., & Song, D. P. (2014). An analysis of safety and security risks in container shipping operations: A case study of Taiwan.Safety Science, 63, 168-178.

Fritzson, A., Bezrukov, S., & Palka, S. (2014). U.S. Patent No. 8,793,799. Washington, DC: U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

Ghodeswar, B., & Vaidyanathan, J. (2008). Business process outsourcing: An approach to gain access to world-class capabilities. 
https://search.proquest.com.proxy1.ncu.edu/docview/********9?accountid=28180 

Hackney, D. G. (2011). The department of defense information security process: a study of change acceptance and past-performance-based outsourcing. 
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Glisson, W. B., & Storer, T. (2013). Investigating Information Security Risks of Mobile Device Use within Organizations. arXiv preprint arXiv:1309.0521.

Hall, J. L., & McGraw, D. (2014). For telehealth to succeed, privacy and security risks must be identified and addressed. Health Affairs, 33(2), 216-221.

Henriksen, E., Burkow, T. M., Johnsen, E., & Vognild, L. K. (2013). Privacy and information security risks in a technology platform for home-based chronic disease rehabilitation and education. BMC medical informatics and decision making, 13(1), 1.

Ong, L. P. (2015). Awareness of information security risks: an investigation of people aspects (a study in Malaysia).

Peltier, T. R. (2013). Information security fundamentals. CRC Press.

Peltier, T. R. (2016). Information Security Policies, Procedures, and Standards: guidelines for effective information security management. CRC Press.

Taylor, R., & Robinson, S. (2014). Can Optimism Increase Organizations Information Security Risks?.

Van Deursen, N., Buchanan, W. J., & Duff, A. (2013). Monitoring information security risks within health care. computers & security, 37, 31-45.

Von Solms, R., & Van Niekerk, J. (2013). From information security to cyber security. computers & security, 38, 97-102.