In today’s world of ever-changing and expanding technology, it’s becoming increasingly difficult for businesses to manage and secure the data and systems which make their organizations run. Often times decisions regarding technology become a “knee-jerk” or ad-hoc event about solving system crises or reacting to a security breach in the environment. Creating a set of IT Policies brings a more mature and proactive approach to the way organizations manage many of the day-to-day functions and security of their computing infrastructure. So, how do you create a set of IT Policies for your organization? A good way to start is by asking the right kind of questions.
- Is my industry or company regulated by any external entities or rules? (i.e., HIPAA, Sarbanes-Oxley, PCI, NIST, etc.)
- Does my company maintain different categories (or types) of data that may have different protection requirements?
- Do I need to control who within and without of the company has access to the different types of data?
- Do I need to keep track of what is changing within my IT environment and who may be making those changes?
- Do I know what my data retention requirements are? (How many versions of the data should I be keeping, and for how long?)
- Should I be making it a regular habit of testing my ability to restore my data and systems?
- Do I know what the risks are to my business, specifically the technology side?
- Do I know how my staff should be interacting with the computing environment, and have I trained them on those expectations?
- Are we putting in to practice those elements which will secure and protect my customers, employees, data, and systems as a whole? (i.e., anti-virus, anti-malware, firewalls, etc.)
Your IT Policies should help to answer these questions, and your IT staff and partners can then configure your environment to enforce those answers.
If you would like assistance in developing a set of IT Policies for your organization, please don’t hesitate to call Digital323. We’d be happy to help!
