DEVELOPING AN EFFECTIVE NETWORK SECURITY POLICY

DEVELOPING AN EFFECTIVE NETWORK SECURITY POLICY

A study reported by the U.S. General Accounting Office (GAO) (1996) found that the U.S. Department of Defense network computers are extremely vulnerable. A series of security attacks conducted by the Defense Information System Agency (DISA) revealed that of 38,000 attacks DISA could penetrate the protection and gain access to the network computers 65% of time. Of those successful attacks only 4% (988 attacks) were detected by the target organization. Furthermore, of those detected, only 27% (267 attacks) were actually reported to the appropriate security authority. Given the sophisticated computer network at the Department of Defense and the number of computer personnel involved, the statistics are alarming. The goal of network security is to provide maximum security with minimum impact on the user accessibility and productivity. The network

SECURITY MEASURES ,computer network

SECURITY MEASURES

1. Security Policy: Develop a security policy. This will limit liability exposure and is the basis for applying appropriate security to the enterprise telecommunications infrastructure.

2. Security Awareness: Implement a strong security awareness, training and education program.

3. Monitor Access: Know who, when, why and how users are accessing your systems.

4. Routine Backups: Routinely back up all systems, store backups off-site and test the backups.

5. Integrity Checks: Run system integrity checks and compare using off-line encrypted checksums.