Creating a cybersecurity policy for your business should be a no-brainer. In reality, it is the other way around. There goes a lot of critical thinking and operational elements into developing your cybersecurity policy, it is not an overly difficult task but due to the stretched number of elements that are to be taken into account, the process gets a little detailed. Before you go on developing the cybersecurity policy for your work-place there are a few factors that you should keep in mind.
These can be taken as the guidelines that you need to follow to develop your personalized cybersecurity policy. And also these example templates for developing the policy should reflect in your original one for your own office.
Before we can begin with the example policy templates or templates that you need to study, the following is a proper definition of cybersecurity policy. It is first important to determine what it is, who makes it, and who the dedicated audience is.
So, without further ado let’s get right into it:
What is a cybersecurity policy?
A cybersecurity policy is the documentation and implementation of various business-critical outlines that need to be upheld and strictly obliged by employees and every other member of the organization. The cybersecurity policy outlines the following elements for your business;
- Very assets of the business that need to be protected
- Threats that are likely to emerge for the assets
- Rules and controls implemented by the business to contain the threats and protecting the assets of your business
It is important to develop your cybersecurity policy especially if you have employees of your own. It will help them to understand their elaborative role and the interaction they need to develop with technical assets and other various resources provided to them by the business.
Who makes the policy?
Generally, it is the responsibility of every department working in a joined organization, so the responsibility falls on every department to be a part of the security development procedure. It should not only be the IT department that has to review and publish the policy because this way only the IT-intensive elements will get covered within the cybersecurity policy and other important details will be left out, to begin with. Following are some of the members who actively take part in the development of the cybersecurity policy;
Board: Company board members must provide their device regarding the very anomalies they are or have to face in the future given the business is IT-oriented. They can also review the current policy draft even if it is in its initial stages.
IT team: As told earlier the IT team is an important part of the whole policy-making in its entirety with other various departments doing their best. Standards around the usage of the computer systems and especially security controls are upheld and developed.
Legal team: The team is in charge of covering various legal points within the cybersecurity policy while also guiding a particular element related to the relevance of the cybersecurity policy with the company charter.
HR team: Reward and punishment are the most absolute domains of the HR department, where they have to obtain a certified T&C certificate from every employee that has understood the said policy in effect.
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Classification of the cybersecurity policy
For every standard organization out there in the tech industry, there are possible three subsets of cybersecurity policy that they use from time to time. The first one is that which is drafted on a piece of paper, the second one is that which is in the very minds of the employee's and finally, it is the third one that in actual terms gets implemented. Cybersecurity policies might present with the things that need to be done but most of the time the very process that should be implemented to pull it off seems to be missing. Security policies could be informative, indicative of an abortive process that must be practiced by the employees, or generally divided into the following categories;
Physical security:
it indicates the very processes that need to be implemented for the security of the physical assets from employees and the management. Such as alarms, surveillance, door locks, and entry points.
Personal management:
These policies are required to indicate to the employees how to conduct or operate day to day business activities.
Hardware and software:
It directs the administrators regarding what kind of technology should be implemented in terms of the hardware and software-based elements. Following are some of the examples for the policies that you should intend on making part of your cybersecurity policy, to begin with;
Information security policy:
This is the most intricate and advanced level policy within the domain of cybersecurity. It entails that the information of the enterprise or the user data the employees arousing within the organization they work in is licensed or subjected to be used under the strict guidelines and rules as entailed by the organization.
Incident response policy
This policy is in place to make sure that there is a standard layout that will be followed by the employees of the company if there is a cyber incident.
Email policy:
This policy outlines the guidelines and the proper process of using the electronic communication medium offered by the company. This policy does cover email, blogs, social media, and other chat technologies to begin with.
Disaster recovery policy:
It takes into account both the cybersecurity as well as the IT teams and initiates a proper guideline regarding the resurrection and backup of the data that might get lost when a tragic disaster hits. A part of this policy is merged into the incident response policy as well.
Access control policy:
The next thing is the access control policy, it determines the very scope of access that the user will be getting once they start using the enterprise's network.
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