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A Business Case for Security
By: Benjamin D. Thomas
Establishing a business case is perhaps the first phase in any project initiation. Organizations that are successful maintain full justification for all business expenditure. An information security project is no different. An effective information security program requires visible support from executive management. To gain support, a persuasive business case is often necessary. An information security program will have numerous tangible and intangible benefits to any organization. It is the role of a business case to document these.
To build a persuasive case for information security, it is important for practitioners to "to become more managerial in outlook, speech, and perspectives." (Information Security Management Handbook 4th Edition, Volume 2.) Stressing the technical benefits of information security is no longer sufficient because of the size and expenditure of information security programs. When making a case for information security, an emphasis should be placed on how proactive security mechanisms ensure that senior management will not be held liable for negligence. As IT has become more prominent in organizations, so have compliance and regulatory requirements. Today, senior management personnel are expected to demonstrate due care and due diligence in relation to information security. With this, information security must become an essential aspect of management.
Addressing the overall benefits of information security is important as well. A business case should stress how information security can become a business enabler. It can be a company differentiator by offering increased levels of customer satisfaction and contributing overall to total quality management. Information security also provides a means to ensure against unauthorized behavior. Often trusting that internal employees will "do the right thing" is not enough. Information security related business cases should be written in a way that emphasizes all benefits of information security.
LinuxSecurity.com Feature Extras:
Getting to Know Linux Security: File Permissions - Welcome to the first tutorial in the 'Getting to Know Linux Security' series. The topic explored is Linux file permissions. It offers an easy to follow explanation of how to read permissions, and how to set them using chmod. This guide is intended for users new to Linux security, therefore very simple. If the feedback is good, I'll consider creating more complex guides for advanced users. Please let us know what you think and how these can be improved.
The Tao of Network Security Monitoring: Beyond Intrusion Detection - To be honest, this was one of the best books that I've read on network security. Others books often dive so deeply into technical discussions, they fail to provide any relevance to network engineers/administrators working in a corporate environment. Budgets, deadlines, and flexibility are issues that we must all address. The Tao of Network Security Monitoring is presented in such a way that all of these are still relevant.
Encrypting Shell Scripts - Do you have scripts that contain sensitive information like passwords and you pretty much depend on file permissions to keep it secure? If so, then that type of security is good provided you keep your system secure and some user doesn't have a "ps -ef" loop running in an attempt to capture that sensitive info (though some applications mask passwords in "ps" output).
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Thank you for reading the LinuxSecurity.com weekly security newsletter. The purpose of this document is to provide our readers with a quick summary of each week's most relevant Linux security headline.
| Debian | ||
| Debian: New krb4 packages fix arbitrary code execution | ||
| 2nd, June, 2005
Updated package. advisories/debian/debian-new-krb4-packages-fix-arbitrary-code-execution |
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| Debian: New mailutils packages fix several vulnerabilities | ||
| 3rd, June, 2005
Updated package. advisories/debian/debian-new-mailutils-packages-fix-several-vulnerabilities |
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| Gentoo | ||
| Gentoo: Mailutils SQL Injection | ||
| 6th, June, 2005
GNU Mailutils is vulnerable to SQL command injection attacks. |
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| Gentoo: Dzip Directory traversal vulnerability | ||
| 6th, June, 2005
Dzip is vulnerable to a directory traversal attack. |
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| Gentoo: Wordpress Multiple vulnerabilities | ||
| 6th, June, 2005
Wordpress contains SQL injection and XSS vulnerabilities. |
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| Gentoo: SilverCity Insecure file permissions | ||
| 8th, June, 2005
Executable files with insecure permissions can be modified causing an unsuspecting user to run arbitrary code. |
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| Red Hat | ||
| RedHat: Low: kdbg security update | ||
| 2nd, June, 2005
An updated kdbg package that fixes a minor security issue is now available for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 2.1. This update has been rated as having low security impact by the Red Hat Security Response Team. advisories/red-hat/redhat-low-kdbg-security-update-RHSA-2005-416-01 |
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| RedHat: Moderate: ImageMagick security update | ||
| 2nd, June, 2005
Updated ImageMagick packages that fix a denial of service issue are now available. This update has been rated as having moderate security impact by the Red Hat Security Response Team. advisories/red-hat/redhat-moderate-imagemagick-security-update-73292 |
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| RedHat: Low: openssh security update | ||
| 2nd, June, 2005
Updated openssh packages that fix a potential security vulnerability and various other bugs are now available for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 2.1. This update has been rated as having low security impact by the Red Hat Security Response Team. advisories/red-hat/redhat-low-openssh-security-update-96847 |
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| RedHat: Low: dbus security update. | ||
| 8th, June, 2005
Updated dbus packages that fix a security issue are now available for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4. This update has been rated as having low security impact by the Red Hat Security Response Team. advisories/red-hat/redhat-low-dbus-security-update-RHSA-2005-102-01 |
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| RedHat: Low: rsh security update | ||
| 8th, June, 2005
Updated rsh packages that fix various bugs and a theoretical security issue are now available. This update has been rated as having low security impact by the Red Hat Security Response Team advisories/red-hat/redhat-low-rsh-security-update-25924 |
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| RedHat: Moderate: xorg-x11 security update | ||
| 8th, June, 2005
Updated xorg-x11 packages that fix a security issue as well as various bugs are now available for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4. This update has been rated as having moderate security impact by the Red Hat Security Response Team. advisories/red-hat/redhat-moderate-xorg-x11-security-update-RHSA-2007-0519-01 |
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| RedHat: Updated kernel packages available for Red Hat | ||
| 8th, June, 2005
Updated kernel packages are now available as part of ongoing support and maintenance of Red Hat Enterprise Linux version 4. This is the first regular update. advisories/red-hat/redhat-updated-kernel-packages-available-for-red-hat-44538 |
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