Most organizations follow a five-step roadmap to achieve the optimal level of project security. This path, however, leads to overspending and realization that “if we had chosen a better solution from the very beginning, we wouldn’t have spent so much on the end product”.
Let’s review it.
Step 1 – ignore the problem
At this stage of the project, the company is still unaware of the risks, considers them acceptable, or believes that implementing proper security solutions might be unprofitable. This approach is rather typical for small businesses such as software houses, banks, law firms, accounting companies etc.
Step 2 – security on paper only
The company acknowledged potential risks, and the management board delegated responsibilities related to project security to the team in charge of it. They cover up project shortcomings with paper documents. When looking for support, management usually defines its scope on the sole basis of meeting regulatory requirements, more often than not with help of law firms.
Step 3 – body leasing
Having incomplete or improperly designed processes in place, the company encounters many problems due to the fact that tasks related to ensuring information security are labor-intensive. It addresses these problems on an ad hoc basis hiring external workers to unburden overloaded units.
However, operations remain inefficient, a number of duties are performed unnecessarily, and despite high costs, the situation hasn’t sufficiently improved.
At this stage, the ability to adapt to changing risk characteristics or regulatory requirements is still limited.
Step 4 – downtime, swelling budgets
The system shows the first signs of weaknesses due to shortcomings in the area of security. External consultants are no longer able to deal with arising problems regardless of their level of expertise.
The position of the chief security officer is weakening.
Step 5 – custom framework
Hitherto solutions have been operating on the principle of “rubber stoppers against further leaks”. Their total cost significantly exceeds that of a tailor-made process designed from scratch.
Only at this stage, companies finally decide to build a framework custom-fit to their needs. Unfortunately, few organizations can afford such a solution, most often the largest market players, such as major banks, telecommunications companies, insurance companies or manufacturers in the sector of industrial automation.
How to best avoid these mistakes?
Securing the processes of project development and project management are key areas of the information security management system in any organization. Therefore, they must not be ignored, just like in the case of securing a company at the operational level or IMSM planning and development.
Addressing the needs and requirements of your ISMS irresponsibly will, sooner or later, will have a negative impact on your company’s finances – not necessarily as a result of an incident.
Follow SEDIVIO on social media and check our blog in the coming months to find out more about our solution that will help you achieve results similar to those of an expensive custom-designed framework at a much lower price