We live in a world where cyber threats lurk everywhere, and nothing is 100% foolproof. However, this cannot deter us from being constantly vigilant and putting in the best possible measures and safeguards to maintain our organization’s security posture to the highest standard possible. This, however, cannot be done overnight. Instead, it calls for systemic and continual improvement so that the security posture can keep up with the constantly evolving threats and attacks. Ransomware attacks, phishing attacks, data breaches, DDoS attacks, malware, spear phishing, and so much more make it to the news every day globally.
In such a landscape, information assets are becoming critically important for every organization. ITIL 4 could be a very useful tool for an organization in this regard. With ITIL 4, security management takes on a stronger dimension and generates a critical juncture that would enable organizations to uphold integrity, confidentiality, and availability of priceless digital resources. Taking this path would be a proactive approach to security management, something that is increasingly important and a need-of-the-hour.
What is ITIL Information Security Management?
ITIL 4 lists 34 management practices that are designed to help organizations provide effective delivery as well as co-creation of value across the organization. One of these 34 ITIL 4 management practices is Information Security Management. ITIL Information Security Management would provide organizations with a structured & systematic approach to identifying, assessing, and managing information security risks. It helps the organization devise policies, and controls, and carry out timely audits to ensure the availability and security of information assets. It is also very important from a compliance perspective.
Some of the key objectives of ITIL Information Security Management are:
- Identify and assess security risks
- Establish security policies and standards
- Implement security controls
- Manage security incidents
- Ensure regulatory compliance
- Foster security awareness & culture
- Continual improvement
Focus on Delivering High Quality IT Services
The unwavering focus on the delivery of high-quality services is a very important part of the ITIL 4 framework. To ensure this goes smoothly, services should be aligned with the needs and requirements of the users as well as the organization. The ITIL 4 framework gives due importance to the process of understanding customer requirements, defining clear and achievable service level agreements or SLAs, continuous monitoring, continual improvement of service performance, etc. So, if an organization embraces ITIL 4 and follows the principles and guidelines laid out by the framework, they would be better placed to ensure that the IT services the organizations deliver are reliable, available, secure, and responsive, leading to improved customer satisfaction.
When IT services are aligned with the organization’s goals, the organization’s security posture is stronger, considering cybersecurity and information security would be one of the important and key goals of the organization. As an extension of this, ITIL management practices and IT services would also be aligned with the cybersecurity – data security, information security, and other security objectives of the organization.
How can ITIL 4 help strengthen security practices and culture in the organization?
There are many components of the ITIL4 framework that can prove to be immensely beneficial in improving an organization’s security posture, such as –
Assessing and managing various risks is an important part of ITIL 4. Using the guidelines for risk management recommended by the ITIL 4 framework, organizations can identify potential risks, understand proactively the impact they could have, prioritize the tasks and measures, etc. The key here would be to bring ITIL 4’s risk management practices and the organization’s cybersecurity practices in synchronization to ensure optimal and effective utilization of resources as well as stronger security postures in the organization.
Change Management
Every change in IT, no matter how big or small, has the potential to open the organization to different vulnerabilities. ITIL 4 in its change management practices highly recommends making controlled and well-documented changes. By extension, when the same principles are applied to cybersecurity, it leads to more meticulous and efficient management of the changes, whether it is the rolling out of security patches, new versions, updates, configuration modifications, or anything else, thereby helping the organization reduce the risk of gaps in security.
Incident Management
Incident management principles in the ITIL 4 framework can be very useful for organizations to work on improving their responses to security incidents. It would help them be better prepared, detect incidents quicker, better analysis, efficient containment, and eradication, as well as effective recovery post-incident. By expanding ITIL’s incident management principles to the security posture, an organization can chart out a clearly defined, meticulous, and detailed response plan with due importance given to transparency, honest and clear communication, reduce potential downtimes and minimize the impact on the organization as well as its stakeholders.
Service Continuity
The ITIL 4 framework lays immense emphasis on maintaining service continuity. This necessitates the maintenance of operational resilience in the organization, even in the face of security threats. ITIL 4 lays down detailed recommendations for implementing and managing backup and recovery procedures helping organizations prepare for potential threats and information security attacks, thereby also being prepared to check loss or theft of data, downtimes, and other forms of attacks.
User Training and Awareness
User training and awareness as well as effective communication also form important tenets of ITIL 4. A lot of security threats and attacks are a result of human error that happened at some point of time, often unknowingly or unintentionally. Using the ITIL 4 guidelines, organizations can train and educate their employees about the best practices, help them understand the consequences of something that otherwise might seem inconsequential, risks, etc. as well as educate them on the importance of honest, effective communication. Both these elements are vital in building a strong security posture in the organization.
Conclusion
Bringing together the ITIL 4 framework and the security posture of the organization holds immense potential and the outlook for the concept seems very positive. The technology landscape is evolving very rapidly as are the cyber threats, some of which may not even exist today but could very well become a major threat tomorrow. In such an environment, being resilient and agile is indispensable, and the collaboration of ITIL 4 and security is very helpful for organizations.
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This ITIL training course will cover the following concepts:
- The concept of a service
- Services, costs, risks. and service management
- Service relationship management
- The 4 dimensions of service management
- Guiding principles of service management
- Service value system
- Service value chain
- General management practices
- Service management practices
- Technical management practices
