Top Sales Information Security Roadmap

Top Sales: Developing an Information Security Roadmap

Top Sales is an e-commerce company that specializes in selling and delivery of sportswear through their web platform. Since the company operates various information technology equipment, it needs to establish and implement an information security roadmap to make sure that the IT infrastructure at the firm is guarded against any form of attack. To achieve this, the company needs to follow the following five steps which were developed to help in the development of effective and efficient information security roadmap; the company identified and classified its resources, protected access to the resources identified, established ways to detect any form of attacks and threats to their resources, creating mechanisms of responding to any threat and attacks and finally, enhancing its analytics.

1. Identifying and Classifying Information Technology Resources

            As an e-commerce firm, Top Sales has several information technology resources which have been identified and classified accordingly. First, the identification and classification of resources categorize the resources into two categories; the physical resources and virtual resources (Ways to craft a better enterprise IT security roadmap, 2018). In carrying out this classification, the company considers the resources and the need to protect it. The physical information technology resources that the company has included; laptop computers that are used by the staff at the company offices, servers that store information, phones that are used for communication and networking equipment. The virtual information technology resources that the company needs to protect include; client information, information about the company, patents and the various copyrights that have been registered by the company, licensing information and blueprints of the products that they are planning to launch. The company has developed an automated system which classifies the identifies the information technology resources that need to be protected by the company. By having these automated tools for tracking and identifying resources, the firm can efficiently determine the need to protect the resources and even provide suggestions on how they should be protected.

2. Protect Resources Access

            After the identification and classification of the resources, Top Sales need to develop strategies that will only allow authorized access to the resources. For the physical resources, the company needs to create office rooms that are secure and reinforce security measures. For instance, they use security surveillance systems to detect when a breach of security has occurred. The company also needs to make sure that the staff has the required authority to access the resources that they are only needed to obtain. To protect virtual resources, the company needs to implement features like the firewalls which will prevent external attacks on the firm’s network. Since the company is using the internet to conduct most of its operations, it needs to implement security features such as web gateways to secure the information on the activities that are performed through the company’s web platform.

3. Detecting Threats and Attacks

            By implementing the various methods of protecting access to resources, the company should be able to detect attacks. It should be noted that recognizing an attack, a threat and a vulnerability involve different processes. The company needs to implement several strategies to detect vulnerabilities in their systems. Vulnerabilities can lead to potential attacks which may affect the operations of the firm. The company can outsource the services of vulnerability detection, this way, they will use professional services. Detection of attacks happens when an attack on the system of the company has taken place. The company needs to monitor the functionalities of the systems that it uses so that it can be able to detect any malfunction which might be the result of an attack. Well, skilled personnel can be used to make sure that the threat is neutralized and that no much damage is done. Threat detection occurs when there is a potential or looming attack on the system. By detecting threats, the company can apply strategies that will avert the occurrence of the attacks on the system.

4. Responding to Threats and Attacks

            Top Sales applies an approach through which they engage their customers directly. This means that if a system malfunctions, the company is bound to lose. The firm’s systems need to be operating optimally at all times to keep a positive reputation. To achieve this, the company needs to use a proactive action against any form of attack, threat or vulnerability that will be detected in any of its information technology resources (Schiffner et al., 2018). The company also relies on information and technological infrastructure in running its operations, because of this, the company needs to respond swiftly to attacks so that its business operations are not disrupted.

5. Enhancing Analytics

            Top Sales depends on statistics to plan their future operations; this makes analytics of its information technology resources an important aspect in promoting its growth. The company needs to analyze what has already happened, what is happening and predict the occurrences of the future regarding information security. By being predictive, the company will be able to implement strategies that will ensure the protection of its resources and the growth of the business.

References

Schiffner, S., Berendt, B., Siil, T., Degeling, M., Riemann, R., Schaub, F., ... & Polonetsky, J. (2018). Towards a Roadmap for Privacy Technologies and the General Data Protection Regulation: A transatlantic initiative. In Proceedings of the Annual Privacy Forum 2018.

Ways to craft a better enterprise IT security roadmap. (2018). Retrieved from https://searchcio.techtarget.com/video/Ways-to-craft-a-better-enterprise-IT-security-roadmap