The Official (ISC)2 CISSP CBK Reference. Aaron Kraus
officer (CSO): A CSO is a senior-level executive within an organization who is generally responsible for all physical security and personnel security matters. Many organizations have merged CSO responsibilities into the CISO role, but you should be aware of the potential distinction between the two. To make matters even more confusing, some organizations refer to their overall security leader as a CSO (instead of CISO). You should lean on context anytime you see these titles used.
Security analyst: A security analyst is someone with technical expertise in one or more security domains who executes the day-to-day security work. This may include things such as data analysis, firewall rule management, incident handling, and other operational activities.
Manager or program manager: In security, a manager (or program manager) is someone who owns one or more processes related to information security. A security manager may be the owner for compliance, vulnerability management, or any other broad set of responsibilities that are executed by security analysts.
Director: In security, a director is generally a manager of managers who is responsible for the overall strategic guidance of a group of security programs.
NOTE While the role of CISO has traditionally reported to a company's CIO, that trend is changing. Organizations increasingly view information security as not only an IT issue but a business issue. As a result, many argue that CISOs should report directly to a company's CEO.
As previously mentioned, security is everyone's responsibility. Outside of the information security roles and responsibilities described in the previous list, every user within an organization plays an important role in keeping information secure. A user (or end user) includes any person who accesses or handles an organization's information systems or data. Users may include full-time and part-time employees, interns, contractors, consultants, vendors, partners, and so on. Some general user responsibilities include the following:
Understand, agree to, and adhere to all information security policies, procedures, standards, and guidelines, as well as any relevant regulatory and compliance requirements. Users are also responsible for satisfying contractual obligations (such as nondisclosure agreements) that affect the confidentiality of the company's information and processes.
Complete all required information security training and awareness activities by their required completion dates.
Report any actual or suspected security violations or breaches to appropriate personnel in a timely manner.
Security Control Frameworks
Poor security management is one of the primary culprits for many organizations' security problems. Security management can be accomplished by adopting a top-down approach, bottom-up approach, or some combination of the two.
Historically, enterprises have utilized more of a bottom-up approach to security, in which the IT department takes security seriously and attempts to develop a security function for the company. With this approach, operations staff identify security needs and issues and push those findings up the chain to senior management to provide guidance and funding. This approach tends to result in a company taking reactive measures rather than instituting proactive policies, and often leads to underfunded security programs.
In a top-down approach, senior leadership starts by understanding the regulations and security threats faced by the organization, and initiates strategies, policies, and guidelines that are pushed down throughout the rest of the organization. With a top-down approach, information security is evangelized by the most senior executives at the company, which ensures that security is prioritized and in alignment with the company's overall business strategy. An effective top-down approach requires strong governance (as discussed earlier in this chapter) that starts with aligning with one or more security control frameworks.
A security control is a technical, operational, or management safeguard used to prevent, detect, minimize, or counteract security threats. (ISC)2 defines a security control framework as “a notional construct outlining the organization's approach to security, including a list of specific security processes, procedures, and solutions used by the organization.” Organizations often adopt a security control framework to assist with meeting legal and regulatory compliance obligations, while also helping to build a security program that maintains the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of the company's assets.
NOTE Technical controls are system-based safeguards and countermeasures — things like firewalls, IDS/IPS, and data loss prevention (DLP). Operational controls are safeguards and countermeasures that are primarily implemented and executed by people (as opposed to systems); security guards are a common example. Management controls include policies, procedures, and other countermeasures that control (or manage) the information security risk. Management controls are sometimes referred to as administrative controls, but this should not be confused with activities associated with a system admin (sysadmin). The lines between the three categories can often blur (i.e., many controls fit into more than one of the categories), and many organizations have discontinued use of the terms to avoid confusion. You should be familiar with the concepts, should you come across the terminology in your organization.
Organizations often select security control frameworks based on their industry. For example, the Payment Card Industry (PCI) control framework is a global framework used by financial services organizations and companies that handle cardholder data. In the United States, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) offers a control framework for healthcare organizations and companies that handle protected health information (PHI). Aside from PCI and HIPAA (which are covered later in this chapter), ISO/IEC, NIST, and CIS provide some of the most frequently adopted security control frameworks used by organizations across multiple industries. While there are many other control frameworks available, you should be familiar with the following frameworks, at a minimum:
ISO/IEC 27001
ISO/IEC 27002
NIST 800-53
NIST Cybersecurity Framework
CIS Critical Security Controls
NOTE The HITRUST (originally known as the Health Information Trust Alliance) Common Security Framework (CSF) was originally developed to address the overlapping regulatory environment in which many healthcare providers operate. It has evolved over time to provide a comprehensive, prescriptive framework that can be used for organizations that exchange any type of sensitive and/or regulated data. Taking into account both risk-based and compliance-based considerations, the HITRUST provides an auditable framework for the evaluation of an organization's security environment.
NOTE Control Objectives for Information Technologies (COBIT) is a framework developed by ISACA (previously known as the Information Systems Audit and Control Association) for overall information technology management and governance and is perhaps the most popular IT governance framework used in industry. While it is not a security-specific control framework, it does outline end-to-end IT governance objectives and processes that encompass many security requirements and concepts. Visit www.isaca.org if you want to learn more about the COBIT framework.
ISO/IEC 27001
ISO/IEC 27001 (sometimes referred to as just ISO 27001) is an information security standard published by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC). ISO 27001 is the most popular standard within the ISO/IEC 27000 family of standards and is focused on the creation and maintenance of an information security management system (ISMS), which ISO defines as “a systematic approach to managing sensitive company information so that it remains secure.” In plain English, an ISMS is a set of people, processes, and technologies that manages the overall security of a company's systems and data. ISO/IEC 27001 describes the overall components