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Your organization's end-users require guidance regarding their proper usage of mobile devices, email accounts, and the network as a whole.
Your plan must support the business model without becoming restrictive for employees and be easy to adhere to.
This article offers guidance for creating and implementing an effective network security plan from start to finish for your company.
We will cover the goals and steps involved. Furthermore, key components necessary to create your security plans, as well as the expertise required to maintain them, will also be covered here.
What Is A Network Security Plan (NSP)?
A network security plan (NSP) enumerates strategies used to safeguard a network against unwanted access by unwelcomed users or events which might threaten its integrity and protection from events that comprise it.
An organization's approach may involve developing policies and procedures outlining their plans for complying with security standards for their systems.
Security plans should be considered living documents requiring regular reviews to stay abreast of changes to network topologies or regulatory mandates.
Management and implementation of network security plans vary greatly between organizations. Medium to large firms might employ an Information Systems Security Officer (CISO), ISO Certified Auditor, or Manager of Risk/Compliance; small and midsize businesses might entrust management duties to an individual wearing multiple hats on the management level alone.
No matter the IT hierarchy of your company, it is critical that members assigned to the management of security plans communicate efficiently with end-users.
What Is the Importance of Network Security Plans?
A network security plan helps protect against unauthorized access or use, prevent damage to infrastructure, and can protect reputation by safeguarding against threats such as ransomware.
An organization risking disaster if its Network Security Plan is seen only as a compliance checkbox to fulfill audit compliance is taking a shortsighted view of things when creating its Network Security Plan. A successful phishing attempt could spread ransomware across their entire network via one computer on it before spreading further across other computers on it and email systems - and vice versa!
Within hours, companies that do not take swift and decisive action could find themselves crippled and at the mercy of attackers.
At that point, organizations need to decide between paying the ransom or hiring costly security consultants to prevent future attacks from taking place; or investing in network security plans which implement controls that prevent attacks altogether and can save an organization this experience.
Planning for a Secure Network
In order to secure a network, various devices like firewalls, routers, intrusion prevention/detection systems, and software applications such as endpoint security may be needed.
Individuals with relevant expertise will need to decide what components will need to be purchased, installed, and maintained to achieve security on any given network.
As part of your investment planning and analysis process, it is critical that you carefully consider costs when creating an effective security plan for your network.
Below you will discover some basic guidelines for developing such an initiative for your own company.
1. Understanding Your Business Model
To develop an effective network security plan, the first step must be understanding exactly what the goal of network protection should be.
It would help if you had an overview of what assets your organization holds as well as where and how the revenue generation occurs - this will allow executive leadership to communicate the company's desired outcomes to you as set by their board of directors.
2. Assess Threats
Once you understand your organization's business model, the next step should be identifying systems, assets, and resources on your network to perform an extensive threat analysis.
Typically third parties perform these assessments; depending on how extensive their analysis may be, it could take several weeks. Note that all objectives, regardless of the time frames to complete them, will include information such as these:
- You should identify and categorize any holes or security breaches in your network.
- Find weaknesses or vulnerabilities in your systems that can be exploited. For example, you may find weak passwords, default passwords, and other security issues.
- To determine the patch level, identify network vulnerabilities on applications, databases, and file servers.
- Check encryption settings for critical systems.
- Test your network's ability to respond to and detect attacks.
- Evidence to back up increased IT investment or network security.
Depending upon your company's size and scope, costs associated with hiring external threat assessors vary in terms of expense associated with hiring them as a threat assessor may vary accordingly.
According to one vendor, the average cost of threat analysis is 10,000. This includes billable time for engineers assigned to projects as well as project manager expenses and any reporting costs that might incur.
Most organizations provide access for assessors to log onto resources like Active Directory for assessment. When performing threat analyses with penetration or vulnerability tests, an assessor uses his preferred toolset and produces a report detailing vulnerabilities discovered along with remediation suggestions based on severity.
Your organization requires regular internal and external security evaluations to maintain high levels of protection for its staff, assets, and operations.
In such reports, you need a comprehensive overview of both aspects. Security Leader will evaluate your company's security policies against industry best practices to determine compliance needs and discuss features/content of security policies for networks.
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3. Draft IT Security Policies and Procedures
Based on your assessment results, use them to update or draft new policies and procedures related to information security at your company.
For instance, consider having both an overarching Information Security Policy as well as any subordinate policies supporting it that support overall company goals for security.
Your organization might establish separate policies regarding Passwords and Mobile Devices. Furthermore, an Internet Usage or Social Media Policy could also be beneficial.
While not requiring multiple policies per se, all policies must be easily understandable by most employees in your workforce.
Below you will find an example of a security policy template designed for easy reading by Security Leadership such as CISOs (CISO stands for Chief Information Security Officer and Director) as well as Compliance & Legal departments.
These policy templates contain concise yet easily understandable language endorsed by these departments for easy approval of content in them.
Once policies and procedures have been thoroughly considered and processed by senior leadership, their final approval for distribution into corporate infrastructure must come from them.
A "top-down" or high-level approach signifies to employees that these policies and procedures have been approved by higher-ups, so they should abide by them.
New employee onboarding and orientation should focus on verifying employee acceptance of policies. Not only will this approach create an atmosphere of accountability immediately upon their hire, but it will also foster a 'Security First' culture within an organization.
Let us now delve deeper into this matter.
4. Foster a "Security First" company culture
Security awareness training will help your organization foster an environment in which security takes precedence.
Employees often struggle to remember the exact language or location of company security policies when first joining, so regular security awareness sessions and periodic phishing campaigns serve to remind employees about these important policies while offering practical ways of counteracting threats, both old and new.
Cyber Security Awareness Month has become an annual tradition over time and offers businesses and their employees a chance to refresh on security policies, provide tips via posters or emails and remind employees about these policies during October.
Establishing or improving a proactive security culture offers numerous advantages; increased security awareness can result from taking this proactive approach to security management.
It can also identify individuals within the company who deliberately go against company policy to cause harm (thieves of intellectual property or sensitive data, disruption to productivity).
As part of any security awareness program, an anonymous hotline should also be set up so violations may be reported anonymously. Even after making every effort to strengthen the security culture within your company, events may still occur that threaten its resources' integrity and confidentiality.
Now let's go deeper into our education. Let's expand on that knowledge further.
Read More: Cybersecurity Providers For Data Protection And Security Solutions
5. Establish an Incident Response
It is crucial for companies to include an Incident Response Plan as one component of their Network Security Plans.
Threat actors aim to disrupt operations at companies all around the globe - yours included! These individuals scour for ways into your system through methods like phishing and social engineering that allow them to gain entry.
Insider threats pose another potential hazard that must be considered when managing risk in an organization. A disgruntled employee could intentionally or inadvertently expose sensitive data.
At the same time, technology exists that can stop these attacks, such as firewalls, network segmentation, and endpoint malware protection solutions.
No matter how effective a company's security plan may be, an attack still may happen at any moment - one mistaken click can have serious repercussions! When something does go amiss, who should we contact immediately?
What will happen if IT managers go on holiday? Where are our Incident Response Plan, and a hacker gains entry to our accounting database? Incident Response provides solutions.
It is a systematic method used to address and mitigate aftereffects from cyber attacks or security breaches by managing their aftermath; its goal is minimizing damage while shortening recovery times and costs and cutting timeframes for recovery efforts.
A robust Incident Response Plan facilitates timely responses to incidents by outlining who constitutes the Incident Response Team members and outlining their responsibilities, along with an incident handler's call tree for facilitation purposes.
Furthermore, this document tracks timelines surrounding incidents as they happen before gathering all team members involved and notifying senior management of these happenings.
Plans should include lessons learned at the conclusion of any incident to enable teams to understand what occurred and prevent similar occurrences in the future.
Below you will find templates of different incident response plans.
6. Implement Security Controls
Your organization will benefit greatly from having policies written professionally that enumerate what needs to be accomplished and are supported by tools and controls in your environment.
Various frameworks exist as resources for security controls that offer guidance for best practices regarding operating systems, passwords, and firewalls - giving organizations all they need for successful security control implementation.
Following are some of the more frequently utilized frameworks:
- NIST National Institute of Standards and Technology
- ISO/IEC 27001 International Organization for Standardization/International Electrotechnical Commission.
- CIS Center for Internet Security.
- PCI DSS is the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard.
- CMCC Cybersecurity Maturity model certification.
All frameworks listed serve a similar goal of creating secure networks; you should review each one to assess if it suits your business model.
Use the NIST Framework's recommendations for compliance with best practices in specific areas, for instance, its firewall requirements. Resources and expertise are required for fulfilling any framework; assistance may be available if your organization lacks this capacity.
7. Managed Security Companies
Outsourced security providers, known as Managed Security Service Providers (MSSP), offer additional assistance to security teams.
Contractual agreements or retainer arrangements may be made depending on your security needs; MSSPs often employ Subject Matter Experts that specialize in specific technologies - we have worked with MSSPs that possess these abilities!
- Network security (Firewalls and Routers).
- Vulnerability management
- Tests for penetration
- Forensics
- SIEM is a security information event management system.
- Endpoint Support (Endpoint Security Management - Malware/Antivirus Support).
- Data Loss Prevention.
A Managed Security Service Provider will assist in the implementation of your Network Security Plan and can manage areas within your infrastructure that lack expertise, freeing your team to focus on operational aspects while creating synergies within the business.
An MSSP partnership may prove an efficient and cost-effective solution - the terms are agreed upon at the engagement start-up.
At many managed service providers, a dedicated project manager serves as the initial point of contact in case any problems arise.
At the same time, they ensure all terms and conditions agreed upon in a Service Level Agreement are fulfilled. It's vitally important that when selecting a managed service provider, you choose carefully, as choosing an unsuitable partner can have serious ramifications on team efficiency as well as your bottom line.
An unsuitable partner could have the opposite of what was intended and quickly turn sour, becoming a financial and personnel drain.
Therefore, it is critical to set out in advance a service level agreement, letters of attestation, insurance requirements, and any legalities associated with your MSSP partner to achieve your Network Security Plan goals successfully.
8. Secure Your Network in the Future
With your Network Security Plan documented and distributed to executive leadership for approval and security controls installed, the next step should be creating a sustainable security culture within your company.
Undoubtedly there will be challenges along the way; adopting a new corporate culture might not meet with universal approval within your organization.
Therefore, executive leaders must support it to set an inclusive tone across the entire workforce.
Diverse roles and resources will be necessary to foster an organization-wide security culture. Medium and large-sized companies usually assign various staffers the task of overseeing their IT program or Cyber Security program while upholding this culture.
Here is an outline of the roles available:
- Chief Information Security Office (CISO).
- Information Security Officer
- Chief Information Officers (CIOs)
- Director of Security
- Security Manager
- Compliance Risk Manager
Communication among members of your team will allow everyone at the company to understand the value of security as part of its culture, with employees supporting this element of business operations.
Security leaders should review and discuss the current state of security programs quarterly to assess gaps, tools, or training programs; similarly, annual review plans for network security must take place as well.
The Six-Step Guide to Develop and Implement a Security Plan for Networks
It can be challenging to protect both data and business against all the threats present today; to do this effectively requires professional resource allocation, as well as expert knowledge.
A report shares why companies should create network security plans as well as offers advice for how best to implement them successfully.
An effective network security plan is crucial in today's age of cyber threats and other attacks on networks. Your plan outlines all of the methods and techniques that you will employ in protecting it against unauthorized users; its maintenance may differ according to the company or sector, but its basic implementation remains constant.
Implement your Network Security Plan Successfully: Six Simple Steps. It can often take time between creating a plan and its successful implementation; follow these six easy steps for creating and successfully executing one!
1. Investigating Your Business Model
To effectively build network security plans, the initial step must be identifying exactly what needs protecting.
Understanding where data resides and how revenue streams through will provide valuable insight for both executive management and the board of directors alike.
2. Conduct a Threat Analysis
To conduct an effective threat analysis, first learn more about your business model and the assets that currently make up its systems and assets.
Third-party assessments may take several weeks depending on network size; InfoSec teams, Database teams, and Server teams might all require members as part of this evaluation; once complete, however, an auditor should issue a comprehensive report outlining any vulnerable points within your system and recommendations on remediation measures to be undertaken by that system.
3. Create IT Security Policies and Procedures
With your threat assessment results in hand, it can help create or expand current policies and systems within your organization.
Social media accounts, mobile phones, passwords and clean desk policies could all fall within different policy groups within a company - your executive leadership must give final approval when finalizing policy implementation for approval and review before being adopted as company policy.
4. Foster a Culture of Security
A security awareness training regimen can play a pivotal role in cultivating an atmosphere of safety within any company, even when employees do not recall all policy-specific words verbatim.
Regular phishing campaigns can serve to remind staff about security policies and ways to combat threats, and tracking down employees who violate policies can also be accomplished via setting up hotlines to report violations immediately.
5. Create Your Incident Response
Establishing your incident response strategy is a critical element of network security. Threats exist which seek to disrupt business operations through ransomware and phishing attacks as well as insider danger threats; you now have technology available that can protect against these attacks, such as network segmentation firewalls, security awareness programs, endpoint malware prevention solutions, and network segmentation firewalls.
6. Install Security Control
It is vitally important that your business implements controls that support its policies, and one of several security control frameworks may prove invaluable in doing so.
Such frameworks provide directions on how to secure firewalls, implement safe practices, and other initiatives intended to enhance protection.
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Conclusion
Your organization can protect its safety and security with an effective Network Security Plan, but creating one requires both in-depth knowledge of your business as well as support from executive leadership.
The plan should be clear, concise, and understandable by all employees to provide effective education on security issues and educate employers of its significance.
By adhering to these suggestions, you can develop an effective network security plan which is also sustainable over time.
