Tag Archives: Policy Enforcement

The Six Pillars of Personnel Security Policy

The insider threat is often discussed among the top information security risks facing organizations.  In fact, for the first time in seven years of doing the study, the 2012 Ponemon Data Loss survey listed internal mistakes by insiders is the number one cause of data breaches.  What is an insider threat? This term is loosely […]

Implied Security Policies Create Added Risk

The US Supreme Court has overturned a lower-court ruling and concluded that management has a right to review employee text messages on company-issued devices. If used as a precedent, this case may have far-reaching consequences for employee expectations of privacy in workplace communications. However, the ruling should also serve as a wake-up call for organizations […]

Effective Security Policy Management – Part 6

Part 6. A Verified Audit Trail Security policy documents will not be effective unless they are read and understood by all members of the target audience intended for each document. For some documents, such as Internet Acceptable Use or Code of Conduct, the target audience is likely the entire organization. Each policy document should have […]

Ideas for Security Policy Sanctions

In order for written information security policies to have “teeth”, there must be consequences for employees that do not follow policies, and this fact must be documented as part of the published policy. The “sanctions” portion of most security policies reads something like this: “Failure to comply with this policy will result in disciplinary action, […]

Contractors fined for not following security policy

In July 2007, several contractors of Los Alamos National Laboratory were fined a total of $3.3 million for failing to adequately protect data as required in their contracts. The Department of Energy (DOE) initiated formal enforcement actions against specific current and former contractors, the reports said that investigations revealed that the contractors failed to prevent […]