This book is written for the first security hire in an organization, either an individual moving into this role from within the organization or hired into the role. More and more, organizations are realizing that information security requires a dedicated team with leadership distinct from information technology, and often the people who are placed into those positions have no idea where to start or how to prioritize. There are many issues competing for their attention, standards that say do this or do that, laws, regulations, customer demands, and no guidance on what is actually effective. This book offers guidance on approaches that work for how you prioritize and build a comprehensive information security program that protects your organization. While most books targeted at information security professionals explore specific subjects with deep expertise, this book explores the depth and breadth of the field. Instead of exploring a technology such as cloud security or a technique such as risk analysis, this book places those into the larger context of how to meet an organization's needs, how to prioritize, and what success looks like. Guides to the maturation of practice are offered, along with pointers for each topic on where to go for an in-depth exploration of each topic. Unlike more typical books on information security that advocate a single perspective, this book explores competing perspectives with an eye to providing the pros and cons of the different approaches and the implications of choices on implementation and on maturity, as often a choice on an approach needs to change as an organization grows and matures.

Building a Practical Information Security Program provides users with a strategic view on how to build an information security program that aligns with business objectives. The information provided enables both executive management and IT managers not only to validate existing security programs, but also to build new business-driven security programs. In addition, the subject matter supports aspiring security engineers to forge a career path to successfully manage a security program, thereby adding value and reducing risk to the business. Readers learn how to translate technical challenges into business requirements, understand when to "go big or go home," explore in-depth defense strategies, and review tactics on when to absorb risks. This book explains how to properly plan and implement an infosec program based on business strategy and results. - Provides a roadmap on how to build a security program that will protect companies from intrusion - Shows how to focus the security program on its essential mission and move past FUD (fear, uncertainty, and doubt) to provide business value - Teaches how to build consensus with an effective business-focused program

This book is written for the first security hire in an organization, either an individual moving into this role from within the organization or hired into the role. More and more, organizations are realizing that information security requires a dedicated team with leadership distinct from information technology, and often the people who are placed into those positions have no idea where to start or how to prioritize. There are many issues competing for their attention, standards that say do this or do that, laws, regulations, customer demands, and no guidance on what is actually effective. This book offers guidance on approaches that work for how you prioritize and build a comprehensive information security program that protects your organization. While most books targeted at information security professionals explore specific subjects with deep expertise, this book explores the depth and breadth of the field. Instead of exploring a technology such as cloud security or a technique such as risk analysis, this book places those into the larger context of how to meet an organization's needs, how to prioritize, and what success looks like. Guides to the maturation of practice are offered, along with pointers for each topic on where to go for an in-depth exploration of each topic. Unlike more typical books on information security that advocate a single perspective, this book explores competing perspectives with an eye to providing the pros and cons of the different approaches and the implications of choices on implementation and on maturity, as often a choice on an approach needs to change as an organization grows and matures.

The best defense against the increasing threat of social engineering attacks is Security Awareness Training to warn your organization's staff of the risk and educate them on how to protect your organization's data. Social engineering is not a new tactic, but Building an Security Awareness Program is the first book that shows you how to build a successful security awareness training program from the ground up. Building an Security Awareness Program provides you with a sound technical basis for developing a new training program. The book also tells you the best ways to garner management support for implementing the program. Author Bill Gardner is one of the founding members of the Security Awareness Training Framework. Here, he walks you through the process of developing an engaging and successful training program for your organization that will help you and your staff defend your systems, networks, mobile devices, and data. Forewords written by Dave Kennedy and Kevin Mitnick! - The most practical guide to setting up a Security Awareness training program in your organization - Real world examples show you how cyber criminals commit their crimes, and what you can do to keep you and your data safe - Learn how to propose a new program to management, and what the benefits are to staff and your company - Find out about various types of training, the best training cycle to use, metrics for success, and methods for building an engaging and successful program

As recently as five years ago, securing a network meant putting in a firewall, intrusion detection system, and installing antivirus software on the desktop. Unfortunately, attackers have grown more nimble and effective, meaning that traditional security programs are no longer effective. Today's effective cyber security programs take these best practices and overlay them with intelligence. Adding cyber threat intelligence can help security teams uncover events not detected by traditional security platforms and correlate seemingly disparate events across the network. Properly-implemented intelligence also makes the life of the security practitioner easier by helping him more effectively prioritize and respond to security incidents. The problem with current efforts is that many security practitioners don't know how to properly implement an intelligence-led program, or are afraid that it is out of their budget. Building an Intelligence-Led Security Program is the first book to show how to implement an intelligence-led program in your enterprise on any budget. It will show you how to implement a security information a security information and event management system, collect and analyze logs, and how to practice real cyber threat intelligence. You'll learn how to understand your network in-depth so that you can protect it in the best possible way. - Provides a roadmap and direction on how to build an intelligence-led information security program to protect your company. - Learn how to understand your network through logs and client monitoring, so you can effectively evaluate threat intelligence. - Learn how to use popular tools such as BIND, SNORT, squid, STIX, TAXII, CyBox, and splunk to conduct network intelligence.

Building an Effective Security Program provides readers with a comprehensive approach to securing the IT systems in use at their organizations. This book provides information on how to structure and operate an effective cybersecurity program that includes people, processes, technologies, security awareness, and training. This program will establish and maintain effective security protections for the confidentiality, availability, and integrity of organization information. In this book, the authors take a pragmatic approach to building organization cyberdefenses that are effective while also remaining affordable. This book is intended for business leaders, IT professionals, cybersecurity personnel, educators, and students interested in deploying real-world cyberdefenses against today’s persistent and sometimes devastating cyberattacks. It includes detailed explanation of the following IT security topics: IT Security Mindset—Think like an IT security professional, and consider how your IT environment can be defended against potential cyberattacks. Risk Management—Identify the assets, vulnerabilities and threats that drive IT risk, along with the controls that can be used to mitigate such risk. Effective Cyberdefense—Consider the components of an effective organization cyberdefense to successfully protect computers, devices, networks, accounts, applications and data. Cyber Operations—Operate cyberdefense capabilities and controls so that assets are protected, and intruders can be detected and repelled before significant damage can be done. IT Security Awareness and Training—Promote effective cybersecurity practices at work, on travel, and at home, among your organization’s business leaders, IT professionals, and staff. Resilient IT Security—Implement, operate, monitor, assess, and improve your cybersecurity program on an ongoing basis to defend against the cyber threats of today and the future.

Computers at Risk presents a comprehensive agenda for developing nationwide policies and practices for computer security. Specific recommendations are provided for industry and for government agencies engaged in computer security activities. The volume also outlines problems and opportunities in computer security research, recommends ways to improve the research infrastructure, and suggests topics for investigators. The book explores the diversity of the field, the need to engineer countermeasures based on speculation of what experts think computer attackers may do next, why the technology community has failed to respond to the need for enhanced security systems, how innovators could be encouraged to bring more options to the marketplace, and balancing the importance of security against the right of privacy.