The risk of cyber-attack is growing exponentially as the opportunities presented by technology and improved systems connectivity grow. This threat to information security is an existential threat to many organisations. 

Breaches in the confidentiality, integrity or availability of their data are significant, but the loss of customer or stakeholder trust in their service could be terminal. 

Securing digital channels is a complex exercise, and one that draws on a range of governance, risk and assurance capabilities as well as in-depth technical and cyber security skills. Any company in this area should look to:

-    Educate: your senior management and employees on security threats and how to respond to these;

-    Architect: your risk, policy, technology and standards environments to help you ensure your business operates according to your risk appetite;

-    Assure: your process and technology, giving you independent and timely information on your state of information security compliance;

-    Manage: your security operation, making sure you blend education, architecture and assurance in a way that is appropriate to your operation.

Educate:
Effective cyber and information security requires people to behave in the right way. From senior management balancing risk and reward when launching a new service, to software developers deciding whether to deliver on time (without following security checks) or late (with completing full security checks), most of your employees will, at some point, have the opportunity to introduce insecurity into your organisation with a routine decision. 

We have designed a suite of education, training and awareness services to help your employees and management make the right decision for your organisation. Educating your employees on security threats and helping them develop the right behaviours to respond to these is therefore critical to building and maintaining an effective security programme. 

Architect:
Building effective security into a fast moving business is a significant challenge. As with any pervasive risk, the key is to understand the ‘parameters’ within which your decisions on information security should be made and to ensure that everyone understands and operates these. Our security experts can help you combine these parameters into an information security architecture that is relevant and proportionate to your operation. 

Assure:
Weaknesses in your security controls will appear through error, misconfiguration or the emergence of an entirely new, previously undocumented vulnerability. We have found that these weaknesses arise however diligent you are in building and operating services. Your security programme should therefore rely heavily on a constant process of checking whether your process and technology controls have been designed and operate effectively. 
This checking could be independent, as a part of internal audit or as a routine part of business and IT operations. 
However you choose to test, it is of critical importance that you test to identify and address weaknesses. 

Manage:
Security can be a complex and fast moving area. Understanding the threats, how they apply to you and how to respond requires experience and expertise that is not available to many organisations. We have therefore designed our security management service help make sure you have the right person running your security programme at the right price. 

Our management services rely almost exclusively on our expert security resource, and combine many of the themes in our ‘Educate’, ‘Architect’ and ‘Assure’ solutions. 

For further details or to arrange a consultation please contact Andy Quinn or Cormac Reilly.