Best Security Policies That Your Company Should Have

Information security is very important for every business. It will ensure that your organization data is secure. If you don’t have proper Information security, then your organization will be vulnerable to data and security breaches. IT security policies will help you in accessing and handling data.

Most companies actually think that they need to create a long security policy. However, complex security policies are never effective. A good security policy will be short in length but it will mention all the important elements. It will mention all the core elements that your company cares about. This policy should also provide clear responsibilities and roles. In this article, we are going to talk about the best security policies that you must include in your IT security plan.

1. Acceptable Use Policy

The AUP will outline how your employees can use your computers. It will define what will happen if your users use their systems inappropriately. Sometimes improper behavior can compromise your entire network. Thus, it will result in legal consequences. Your employees can sometimes access your customer’s personal information for their profit. This is an example of inappropriate use. The AUP will include the appropriate behavior that your employees should follow while handling your data.

2. Security Awareness and Training Policy

You should provide security training to all your employees. This will ensure that they can properly protect your company information. You should ensure that your employees have signed their confidentiality agreement. They should also provide proof after completing their training. Your IT team can design this security training program.

The main aim of this training is to ensure that your employees know about the security policy. They will know about how these policies are protecting your business. Your policy should also mention the personnel who will be handling this training.

Your security policy should contain some general points like how to maintain workstations. The main parts of the training will be identifying phishing and social engineering tactics. These things can help you in limiting the system downtime.

3. IRP or Incident Response Policy

A business continuity plan is very important for modern businesses. The IRP plan is a part of your BCP. Your IRP plan will outline your response to an IT security incident. Make sure that you are not mixing this plan with a disaster recovery plan. It will focus on what happens after a data breach occurs.

You should mention your incident response team in this plan. This team will be responsible for testing this policy. The roles of every member of this team should be determined. They should know about the resources that they can use for recovering your data.

There are various phases of an IRP plan. In the first step, you will prepare for a future attack. In case of a security attack, you will initiate the identification phase and identify the attack. The containment phase will help you in containing the breach. After that, you need to focus on recovering your data and resources.

Your IRP will help you in identifying important information like data flow and network diagram. You need to ensure that all the relevant incident handling procedures are mentioned in this policy. Make sure that your users how to report a data breach. Your top management should always monitor your network. There should be cooperation between your staff members.

4. Remote access policy

This is another very important policy for modern businesses. Most people are working remotely from their homes. Thus, you should create a strict remote access policy for protecting your data. This remote access policy will ensure that your resources are protected. You should send this policy to all your employees that are working remotely. Make sure that they are using VPN and disk encryption for protecting your data.

The requirements of this will be similar to the onsite access requirements. Your employees should never engage in any illegal activity while accessing your data. Also, they should never let anyone access their work device. Your employees should always protect their work devices. They should also log off after doing their tasks. Also, they should never connect to other networks while working on your network. Your employees should install antimalware software in their systems. This will protect their system from malware and viruses. Also, they should use a VPN while working on your network.

5. Password Management and creation policy

This policy will ensure that your users are creating strong passwords. It will be a documented process for verifying your user credentials. If your employees are using weak passwords, then attackers can easily guess it. They should also regularly change their passwords. Your employees should never reuse their old passwords. If they are reusing their old passwords, then all of their accounts will get compromised.

This policy should mention the password length requirements. Also, it should specify the password complexity required. For example, a strong password should have an uppercase character, a lowercase character, number, and special symbols. You should ensure that your employees are not using simple words as their passwords. Your policy should also mention any exceptions. For example, you might be using some application that has different password complexity required. You should also mention the maximum retry attempts after which the account will get blocked. Also, it should mention how your users can recover their account.

Conclusion

You should first do a security risk assessment for finding all the weak areas in your network. If you don’t have access to security professionals, then you should consider working with an MSSP. Experienced MSSPs like Bleuwire can help you in creating a security policy. They will ensure that your network is protected from all the latest attacks. Also, they will first conduct an IT risk assessment which will help them in finding vulnerabilities in your network. They will work on fixing all of these vulnerabilities. If you need more information regarding security policies, then you can contact Bleuwire.

Contact us today to learn about Bleuwire™  services and solutions in how we can help your business.