Policy-based security

This topic describes the benefits of using Secure Perspective to create policy-based security.

With today's heightening security and compliance demands, securing the systems in an organization is no longer enough. Special attention must now be paid to securing the important data owned by an organization. Unfortunately, without a tool, the quantity of data to be secured becomes unmanageable to even the most technically knowledgeable policy makers. In addition, compliance is difficult to prove. What is needed is a simple way to state how systems must behave and the ability to monitor that behavior.

The Secure Perspective licensed program allows organizations to create enforceable security policies using natural language. The natural language approach defines an understandable security policy that is meaningful for all parties within a business. Additionally, natural language policies fit well in implementing requirements for chosen regulations. As a result, the policies can be created by business leaders who know how data assets should be protected without needing knowledge of where that information is stored. Data owners and system administrators can map terms from the policy to digital assets. The organization's policy can then be enforced with the click of a button. Also, Secure Perspective provides capabilities to automatically verify that a system is in compliance with stated policies. Quick changes to the security policy in response to an auditor's request can be applied instantly to computers within an organization, avoiding costly IT change processes.

Some of the benefits of Secure Perspective are as follows:
  • Tools to create well-structured natural language security policies.
  • Facilitators for the mapping of a policy to digital assets.
  • Policy applications or compliance checks with a click of a button.
  • Records of all policy application and compliance activity.
  • The ability to see how applying a policy affects business processes.
  • The ability to undo the application of a policy if undesired consequences occur.
In bridging the gap between natural language and system commands, Secure Perspective enables a unified process for organizations to manage their data security. As the business world adapts to heightening security demands, focusing effort and saving time becomes even more important. Secure Perspective is an effective tool in attaining these goals.

Policy creation

To reduce the time and risk involved in creating a security policy, take a systematic approach in the form of a precise process. Typically, the life cycle of a policy consists of the following steps:
  • Authoring the statements
  • Connecting to systems
  • Predicting problems
  • Applying the policy
  • Checking for compliance
Secure Perspective facilitates each phase of this life cycle. For information on the process you can use to create security policies, see Writing effective security policies.

From a broad view, security is an organization-specific quality that can be difficult to measure. However, with a policy in place that governs everything that is enforced, the policy becomes the measure of an organization's security. The policy, as crucial as it is, can only be as effective as its creation, implementation, and maintenance.