Enforcement #4

A directive must come with sensible enforcement Cybersecurity policy establishment and cybersecurity policy enforcement are usually executed independently in an organization. Normally, policy authors are more knowledgeable to stipulate the rationale behind whether explicitly or implicitly why protection are required to secure the cyber space of the organization. Enforcement team simply follow the book to provide advisories or perform compliance check. The world is not perfect and situation will drive decision if it is a policy exception or the inadequacy of policy for revision. As cybersecurity practitioner, we must exercise our professional judgment to advise pragmatic approach in helping business for policy compliance rather than just a zero or one decision. After all, a "cyber court" in an organization is uncommon where the "cyber judge" will have the final ruling. Certain cybersecurity practitioners even have mal-practice to involve Senior Management for approval without taking up professional responsibility. Senior Management should be in the informed role rather than an approval role. ...
Read More

Opportunist

Dual signages on display - adopt the appropriate one in particular situation? Policy statement must be clearly defined and published. It must also be precise without ambiguity but subject to interpretation by different parties. If your cybersecurity policies are written unclear, a lot of unnecessary internal overheads of so-called policy exceptions or enforcement issues will be surfaced. Therefore, regular policy review and adjustment is indeed integrated into the policy requirement. And last but not least, don't be aggressive to write something that is not achievable in the specific business environment. ...
Read More

Spare Capacity

Roof needs to cater for extra loading due to different weather conditions Availability is one of the protection objectives in cybersecurity. When deploying new systems, the design must cater for spare capacity. Usage patterns need to be understood too as this will surge capacity demand instantaneously. Capacity refers to bandwidth, storage, processing speed. This must be estimated in the next 3-5 years with the projected growth rate plus the peak demand, setting threshold to trigger alert to resolve the capacity issue. It can be adding more storage, or archiving historical records offline, or deleting records per corporate retention policy. It is part of system management to maintain a healthy cyber environment to run business. Otherwise, business services will be interrupted. ...
Read More