IT Security trends seem to be turning away from the usual tactical, technical focus on IT operations to so called “risk management”. So, bring on the consultants! With the evolution of information risk management shaping its way up to IT security works at many large organisations, Jonathon Penn, a security analyst at Forrester Research Inc, has singled out five trends in IT security that are bound to be on your chief IT security officer’s list for this year.
The first on that list will be GRC: IT governance, IT risk management and IT compliance (GRC) are to merge into a single discipline, with greater attention paid to metrics, staffing and optimal organisational structure.
IT security operations will be the next. As IT security technology becomes commoditized and embedded in IT infrastructure, security organisations are to split into two separate groups: strategy teams that will focus on business risk management issues, and operational teams that will oversee the technical aspects.
The third on his list is sure to be Application Security. Of course, Applications are a prime target for attackers especially as they deal with sensitive data. The ‘fix it when it happens’ attitude is giving way to more security programs that span the whole lifecycle of the application from the germ of an idea, right through to the operation.
To many business partners, Datacentric security is the mammoth and can determine who gets to see and protect classified data. Of course, this requires very close communication between business leaders.
Lastly, but certainly not least he may have Digital investigations, e-discovery or forensics on his list. I’m with you when you think it’s a daunting and sometimes scary area to deal with, especially e-discovery, where organisation are constantly scratching heads trying to find the best practices.