Today, businesses and organizations that invest in new technologies to automate processes, enable remote work, and streamline operations are benefiting from a boost in efficiency and productivity.
But with these advancements come increased system complexity—multiple vendors, delivery models, applications, and data sources all converge to create a complicated cybersecurity environment. This growing complexity means greater exposure to risk, making information security governance essential.
What Is Information Security Governance?
Information security governance refers to the framework that ensures your organization’s cybersecurity system is properly managed, monitored, and aligned with business goals. It’s more than just technical safeguards, it’s about clearly defining ownership and accountability for each piece of your security strategy.
Effective governance includes:
- Regularly testing and updating infrastructure for vulnerabilities
- Training employees to recognize and respond to threats quickly and effectively
- Identifying and prioritizing new risks early
- Holding teams accountable for proactive risk management
By having a strong governance framework in place, you’ll encourage and foster a culture of cybersecurity awareness, ensuring your organization remains resilient even as systems evolve.
Why Is Security Governance Important?
The benefits of information security governance extend well beyond compliance. Cybersecurity risks are ever-evolving and 69% of companies see compliance mandates driving their spending. But a lack of information security governance can leave your company vulnerable to attacks from outside actors and current or former employees.
A well-defined governance plan helps your organization:
- Align IT operating strategies with business objectives
- Create effective oversight mechanisms
- Integrate risk and control activities
- Optimize resources
- Streamline business and auditing processes
- Collect higher-quality assessment data for future security refinements
Leveraging IT strategies, managed solutions, holistic procedural improvements, and best practices based on the NIST Cybersecurity Framework can help ensure readiness for incidents and staying compliant with both government and industry regulations.
Whether in the public or private sector, an effective information security governance plan, focused on risk management and security awareness, will help decrease your organization’s risk as system complexity increases.
4 Key Steps to Strengthen Your Information Security Governance
A robust governance plan isn’t difficult to build, but it does take careful planning and strong leadership. Here’s how to get started:
1. Define Policies and Goals
Lay the foundation by setting clear cybersecurity policies, goals, and key performance indicators (KPIs). This will provide a comprehensive roadmap for your information security governance plan and ensure that policies and goals are widely communicated and understood. The roadmap should include:
- Understanding Risk: A comprehensive risk assessment to help identify and prioritize threats and vulnerabilities.
- Defining Goals: Clarify what level of risk is acceptable and what you’ll do to achieve it.
- Establishing KPIs: Define how you’ll measure success (you can’t improve what you don’t measure).
2. Standardize Security Processes
Avoid gaps in your defenses by unifying procedures across departments. By standardizing procedures across your organization, the risk of error or oversight is reduced and it’s easier for those responsible for security to manage your organization. Align processes and ensure there’s a transparent, widely communicated process for your:
- Operating systems
- Devices
- Applications
- Software
- Network configurations
Standardization makes security maintenance easier by eliminating the need to monitor, troubleshoot, and protect a patchwork of different devices and solutions.
3. Get Executive Buy-In
Leadership support is essential. Your information security governance strategy will only succeed with buy-in from top-level leadership. Ensure that your governance plan:
- Aligns with broader organizational priorities
- Is backed by executive leadership
- Is clearly documented and accessible to all team members
4. Empower Security Enforcement
Once you’ve set goals, standardized processes, and communicated strategies throughout your organization, designate a leader—such as a vCISO—to oversee the plan and enforce policies. Without accountability, employees may quickly revert to old habits and ignore new policies or requirements.
Partner With Experts in Information Security Governance
At AISN, your security is our priority. If you’re struggling to implement an information security governance plan, we specialize in helping you embed cybersecurity governance, risk management, and compliance into your operations.
Contact AISN today to learn how we can help you unlock the full benefits of information security governance.