OPERATIONAL MANAGEMENT POLICIES 2
Operational Management Policies
Security is critical for any organization seeking to secure their information from
malicious attacks. Consequently, companies often formulate policies to help mitigate the risks of
such an attack. Operational management policies often guide employees by providing a template
for best practices. In this paper, the researcher will provide a review of the policies that can be
implemented in an organization
Security Policies
Data security
Data security is a major factor to consider when formulating policies to protect against
data breaches in an organization. System Administrators are often faced with the challenge of
ensuring that information systems are protected from unauthorized access. A common practice in
data security is the use of access codes and other forms of restrictions to access important
information systems.
Audit Logging
An administrator should ensure that access logs to the company systems are maintained
for a considerable time to ensure that attacks can be traced back to the initial point of origin.
Breaches can lead to leakage of sensitive information over time as attacks mask their access to
the system. Audit logging would allow the company to view both successful and unsuccessful
logins to a system. The logging information also tracks the credentials used to access a system.
This would help in identifying the source of the breach preventing further leakage of sensitive
information from the system.
Securing Storage Devices
Another policy that can be implemented is encrypting storage devices to prevent
unauthorized access to the information stored in the external drives. Portable media storage
devices are useful data transfer tools but provide an exploitable weakness (Williams, 2016). It is
important to ensure that data transfer using physical storage devices is limited and in cases where
it is unavoidable, the devices should be encrypted with passwords. A removable media policy
would help address the risk of a data breach through removable media
Roles
The ICT support team and the systems administrator are responsible for ensuring that
management and fellow employees in companies and organizations formulate policies for the
protection of sensitive information. The system administrator is the principal person in charge of
ensuring the security of the information system of the company while the management and
security implement the policies proposed by the IT department.
