Question

Part One

Plan, Develop and Manage a Security Policy Background: Consider that the Commonwealth Government of Australia is planning to launch ‘My Health Record’ a secure online summary of an individual’s health information. The system is available to all Australians, My Health Record is an electronic summary of an individual’s key health information, drawn from their existing records and is designed to be integrated into existing local clinical systems. The ‘My Health Record’ is driven by the need for the Health Industry to continue a process of reform to drive efficiencies into the health care system, improve the quality of patient care, whilst reducing several issues that were apparent from the lack of important information that is shared about patients e.g. reducing the rate of hospital admissions due to issues with prescribed medications. This reform is critical to address the escalating costs of healthcare that become unsustainable in the medium to long term. Individuals will control what goes into their My Health Record, and who is allowed to access it. An individual’s My Health Record allows them and their doctors, hospitals and other healthcare providers to view and share the individual’s health information to provide the best possible care. The 'My Health Record' is used by various staff such as System Administrator, Doctor, Nurse, Pathologist and Patient. In order to convey and demonstrate the rules and regulations to the users of this system, Commonwealth Government of Australia needs a security policy. You are employed as the Security Advisor for the organisation. The task that is handed to you by the Chief Information Officer now is to create, develop and manage "System Access Security Policy" for atleast any 3 users of the system.

Complete the following in your security policy:

Plan System Access Security Policy

Develop System Access Security Policy

Manage System Access Security Policy

Answer 1

As the years are passing by, security is growing as one of the most effective fields in the history of computers. There is a need of getting each one of the things secured with the help of internet security with ethical actions. There are many things happening on the web and promising safety without taking any tough measures is one of the impossible tasks nowadays. Hence, companies and individuals have moved to security tools and technologies to keep their information safe while connected to the internet.

Planning System Acess Security Policy:

Planning the security policy is one of the major things that require attention and must also be noted down for such a big organization. Hence, I have gathered a few of them below:

• Preparing:
  • One must always prepare for the risks and also keep the systems checked for the vulnerabilities.
  • The best approach is to plan and make changes to the system as soon as the updates are launched to a particular system.
  • The planning must work accordingly so that the risks are being minified at the user's end.
• Verifying & Eliciting:
  • Verifying each & every potential risk in the system and if found critical then eliciting the risk will ensure that the risks are eliminated properly.
  • The elimination of the risks is also being done on a certain level so that there are no further risks remaining in the system to check.
• Analyzing gaps & Evaluating:
  • Analyzing for risks is the major activities that must be taken on the developing end because if a risk is analyzed in the earlier stage it is less destructive for the system.
  • Evaluating the level of the risks also become important for the users so as to make the risks less effective on the systems.

Developing System Access Security Policy:

For the security policies, there are certain things to be always taken into consideration, we will discuss all of them as we dive in deep. So here we go,

1. Knowing The Risks:
   • It is the most important part while creating security policies to know what risks are there in the system.
   • How the information is been manipulated at the client as well as the server end. Hence, making the process more secure as data is the part for which security is always compromised.
2. Knowing The Wrongs Done By Others:
   • Knowing that the organizations who have been gone through the certain risks which reside in your system. Learning from the mistakes made by others is always the most effective way of setting guidelines.
   • The guidelines to the security policy consist of the most probable wrong things that each and every organization with similar risks are been doing.
3. Keeping Legal requirements in mind:
   • Many times organizations completely forget about the legal requirements that are been required by the officials.
   • Hence, keeping the legal jurisdictions, data holdings and the location in which you reside is also most important.
   • Recently, this has been the case with Facebook's most controversial data theft.
4. Setting the level of security:
   • The level of the security that is been planned must always be kept in mind with the level of risks that are been residing in the system.
   • Excessive security in the system can also cause hindrance to the smooth business operations and hence, overprotecting oneself can also be a cause to the problem.
5. Training Employees Accordingly:
   • The training of the employees in a certain part of the security is also a major part of the security policy as the employees are the one who makes mistake.
   • So, if one trains their employee in such an order that they minimize the mistakes that are been made it will become great for the system.

Hence, these are the guidelines for creating an effective and functional security policy.

Managing System Access Security Policy:

• Collecting Information:
  • The collection of information is one of the major parts that plays in the security of the organization. The URL of the target must be accessible to gain information.
  • Information caught in wrong hands can turn out to be chaos for any organization. Hence, information must always be safeguarded with levels of security.
• Risk Profiling:
  • Checking the website for each and every type of risks/threats is a very important task and must be carried on with each and every module of the organization's availability in the internet space.
  • There must be things carried out like:
    • Automated threat scanning
    • Penetration Testing
    • Black Box Testing of the source codes
    • Assigning Risk Ratings to the Security Flaws
    • Reporting to higher Authorities
• Updating Technology:
  • In the current world scenario, it has become very important to update the technologies that are been actively used and must be balanced accordingly.
  • The use of older versions will come with a bunch of vulnerabilities and threats along with the destruction of certain aspects of the organization.
• Application Fingerprinting:
  • In an organization, there are certain things that must be checked for the known vulnerabilities and exposures. If there, one must always keep it the priority to overcome certain threats in order to run the organization smoothly.
  • The application fingerprinting consists of different levels of assessment. Here are some of the different scopes:
    • Defining Objectives
    • Devising Strategy to overcome threats
    • Role-Based Access Control Matrix
    • Choosing Appropriate Security Tools

Everyone must keep in mind that being safe on the internet is an integral part of the virtual life and must carry on managing the security each time there is any interference of threats or vulnerability. One must also stay updated if using any third-party application as there are many zero-day fixes coming in the applications which help us to stay immune to malware and viruses that have affected the software in the past time.