Information Assurance

Topics on Information Assurance

 What are the needs for information assurance (IA)?

 Purpose of IA
 Five Pillars of IA
 Risk associated with non-adherence to AI processes
 Organization Data Breach
 Organization’s Financial Damage
 Operation Losses
 Loss of Reputation and Brand Image
 Customer Losses
 Countermeasures to mitigate risk
 Establish and update information security policies
 Train employees about securities best practices and security policies
 Implement Data Security Solutions
 Periodicals Update of workstation’s Operating System (OS)
What are the needs for information assurance
(IA)?

 The purpose of AI is to identify, understand and manage the risk related to the
organization’s use of information and information systems (Hernandez, 2014).
 Five pillars to ensure and maintain the AI (Wilson, 2012):
 Confidentiality – Safeguard sensitive information from unauthorized access.
 Integrity – Prevent unauthorized changes in the information during its transmission or while it is
in use.
 Availability – Allow users access to information for their work’s needs and responsibilities.
 Nonrepudiation – Provide evidence that information was sent and received.
 Authentication – Guarantee that authorized users are who they say they are.
Risk associated with non-adherence to AI
processes

 Organization Data Breach – Social engineering attacks are caused by phishing and pretexting attacks,
and email is the most common attacking medium used by hackers with 93% and 96% of total successful
breach attacks, respectively (Data Breach Investigations Report, 2018).
 Organization’s Financial Damage – According to hosting tribunals, 40 to 60% of small businesses will
not open after data loss (Branko, n.d.).
 Operations Losses - Small businesses can pay up to $8,000 for an hour of downtime, as reported by
hosting tribunals (Branko, n.d.).
 Loss of Reputation and Brand Image - According to a Centrify study, 65% of consumers lose trust in
organizations affected by data breaches (The Impact of Data Breaches On Reputation & Share Value: A
study of marketers, IT practitioners and consumer in the United Kingdom, 2017).
 Customer Losses –According to Veronis, 52% of consumers consider moving to another service and
product provider with better security (Hospelhorn, 2020).
Countermeasures to mitigate risk

 Establish and update information security policies.

 Train employees about securities best practices and security policies.
 Implement Data Security Solutions (Melnick, 2021).
 Through Software
 Antivirus
 Firewall
 Intrusion Detection and Prevention System (IDS/IPS)
 Data Loss Prevention
 Data Encryption
 Security Information and Event Management (SIEM)
 Through Hardware
 Data Backup and recovery
 Physical protection
 Restrict access to networks hardware such as servers, switches and routers.
 Execute periodically Operating Systems (OS) updates on the workstation.
References

 Hernandez, S., Schou, C. (2014).Information Assurance Handbook: Effective computer security and risk management.
McGraw-Hill
 (2018). Data Breach Investigations Report. Verizon.
 Branko, K. (n.d.). 15+ Scary Data Loss Statistics to Keep in Mind in 2021. Retrieved from Hosting Tribunal:
https://hostingtribunal.com/blog/data-loss-statistics/#gref
 The Impact of Data Breaches On Reputation & Share Value: A study of marketers, IT practitioners and consumer in the
United Kingdom. (2017, May). Retrieved from Centrify:
https://www.centrify.com/media/4772757/ponemon_data_breach_impact_study_uk.pdf
 Hospelhorn, S. (2020, March 29). Analyzing Company Reputation After a Data Breach. Retrieved from Varonis:
https://www.varonis.com/blog/company-reputation-after-a-data-breach/
 Melnick, J. (2021, April 16). Top 12 Data Security Solutions to Protect Your Sensitive Information. Retrieved from
Netwrix: https://blog.netwrix.com/2019/09/12/top-12-data-security-solutions-to-protect-your-sensitive-information/
 Wilson, K. (2012, February 14). Conflicts Among the Pillars of Information Assurance. IT Professional, 15(4), 44-49.