Security Management Cycle

Information is one of the most valuable assets in your business. The use of proper preventive measures and safeguards can reduce the risk of potentially devastating security attacks, which could cost you the future of your business. Some losses might be irrecoverable, such as the loss of a business deal due to leaks of confidential data to your competitor.

With an effective information security management policy in place, you will be able to provide your company with a strong security strategy, and a cost-effective solution for the overall protection of valuable information. The advantage is that information control becomes easier to manage and, most importantly, you can minimise the risk of attacks, ultimately saving costs. You want to safeguard you assets as best as you can, so simply making a security budget a mandatory part of your company / organisation budget would be a wise move.

Information security management involves a combination of prevention, detection and reaction processes. It is a cycle of iterative activities and processes that require ongoing monitoring and control. While this management cycle is mostly applied at the overall organisation level, it can also be applied to different functions or units in a business to prevent financial loss, e.g. the sales department, the customer service unit, and so on.

In order to make security management work, involvement, understanding and support from all members in your organisation is a crucial factor in the effectiveness of any program. Do not be fooled into thinking it is an isolated task just for the security or IT department.

The diagram below highlights the major activities involved in any security management cycle.

Information Security Management Cycle

(Please click the boxes in the diagram for detailed explanation of the term)