Fine-tuning your critical infrastructure with strategic security

By 2025, it is projected that 45% of global organizations will experience a security attack on their supply chain software. In light of this, it comes as no surprise that cyber actors are becoming increasingly sophisticated in carrying out their malicious acts, as evidenced by the recent data breach at Uber. 

While developing an infrastructure security plan may not be as complex as many business leaders believe, it is crucial to align it with your business strategy to accommodate both environmental and technological factors. 

As a security and risk management leader, your focus should be on prioritizing tactical challenges and creating an infrastructure security planning process that supports you from envisioning your strategy to its execution. 

In this blog post, we will provide insights into five key factors that can help you fine-tune critical infrastructure processes to enhance risk management across your organization. 

What should your infrastructure security strategy entail? 

As a security leader, it is essential to recognize that strategic planning lies at the core of an effective infrastructure security program. To begin, you can establish a consolidated vision for your security strategy, which will serve as a guiding light when it comes to task prioritization and critical procedure analysis. Let's explore five best practices that can fortify your organizational infrastructure and keep malicious entities at bay. 

Practice #1 – Defining an actionable vision 

What are your objectives for a specific period? Does your security strategy exhibit a certain level of maturity? How will you introduce new capabilities and architectures amidst rapidly evolving technology landscapes? 

These are the questions you should be asking yourself while formulating a vision statement for your infrastructure security strategy. Your vision model must be supported by a set of actionable objectives that you aim to accomplish during the execution phase. 

Developing objectives for your security strategy requires a deep understanding of your business strategy, technological trends, and environmental factors that directly and indirectly influence critical infrastructure security decisions within your organization. 

Practice #2 – Crafting the appropriate business strategy 

Your business strategy has a significant impact on how you plan and execute your security strategy. For most enterprises, the business strategy encompasses aspects of leadership, cost, and service. However, how do these elements create value from an IT security standpoint? 

As the Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) of your company, you must consider various elements, including your company's market-share growth target, acquisitions, organic growth product expansion, and consultations with relevant executives, to outline a strategic IT security plan. 

Practice #3 – Accounting for environmental and technological drivers 

Different environmental trends give rise to distinct disruptions in the technology market. These trends encompass economic, regulatory, and market-related factors that can introduce security risks to your enterprise. 

On the other hand, as an infrastructure security expert, you should be vigilant about emerging technologies such as cloud computing, mobile device management (MDM), blockchain, and zero-trust architectures. Incorporating these trends into your infrastructure security strategy can enhance its effectiveness. 

Practice #4 – Establishing rigorous reporting procedures 

Maintaining effective and consistent reporting on your security progress is crucial for sustaining organizational resiliency. Adopt a balanced approach that ensures the reporting process remains transparent, thereby instilling confidence in the security leadership team. Be sure to address the following points: 

• Identify which projected advantages were fully or partially realized 
• Determine any expected outcomes that were not achieved 
• Assess the security challenges and complications experienced on an organizational scale 

Practice #5 – Prioritizing value-added parameters 

To optimize your security objectives, businesses need to prioritize their areas of focus based on the available resources. Consider the following parameters when determining your security needs: 

• The number of resources available for implementing security practices 
• The financial cost associated with executing your security strategy 
• The time to value your projects  

Now that you are aware of these five best security practices, you can establish a resilient and robust organizational infrastructure that helps you achieve your business goals while effectively managing risks. 

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