Cyber Security Policy

What is cyber security policy?

A cyber security policy details the practices, standards for behavior, and measurable goals that an organization requires to prevent and recover from cyberattacks.

What are cyber security policy examples?

Cyber security policies cover a broad range of potential security concerns, and can be specific to a given industry or global region. Policies may outline the acceptable use of the corporate network and systems, define ideal cyber hygiene, or determine how responses to a data breach should be handled. Access control policies define the standards for who can access the network and what controls are in place to limit and authenticate users. Security policies should also outline a disaster recovery plan that will manage response teams after an incident, and a business continuity plan can ensure operations continue while hardware, software and data are being restored.

Drafting cyber security policy from examples

Establishing cyber security policy is an essential part of protecting organizations against cyber risk. As the landscape of cyber threats rapidly evolves, cyber security policies must adapt at an equal pace to help organizations avoid security incidents and major breaches.

Security and risk teams don’t need to draft cyber security policy from scratch. There are plenty of security frameworks and guidelines that provide excellent cyber security policy examples. However, security policy must be created in coordination with the Board and C-suite – and that task can be more complicated.

Many executives and Board members lack the technical background to develop or approve cyber security policy based on highly technical reports and presentations. To get the buy-in of organizational leadership, security and risk managers must communicate risks, security performance gaps, and recommendations for remediation in business terms that everyone can understand.

Bitsight can help. Bitsight Executive Reporting provides tools that make security performance understandable and accessible to senior leadership, driving more productive conversations about cyber risk as well as cyber security policies.

Common frameworks for cyber security policy examples

When looking for recommendations and examples of cyber security policy, these common frameworks make it easier to define the processes and procedures organizations can take to assess, monitor, and remediate cyber security risk.

• NIST Cybersecurity Framework – The gold standard for a cybersecurity maturity model, identifying security gaps, and meeting cyber security regulations.
• ISO 27001 and ISO 27002 – The international standard for validating cyber security programs internally and across third parties.
• SOC2 – A trust-based framework and auditing standard to help verify that vendors and partners are managing client data securely.
• NERC-CIP - A set of cyber security standards designed to help companies in the utility and power sector reduce risk and ensure the reliability of electric systems.
• HIPAA – A security framework that requires healthcare organizations to implement controls for securing and protecting the privacy of health information.v
• GDPR - A European Union regulation that strengthens data protection procedures and practices for EU citizens, impacting organizations anywhere in the world that collect and store the private data of EU citizens.
• FISMA – A comprehensive cyber security framework that protects U.S. federal government information and systems against cyber threats.

Measuring the effectiveness of cybersecurity policy

Setting cybersecurity policy is a critical step in protecting your organization against cyber threats. As cyberattacks grow more sophisticated and frequent, your organization’s policies must also evolve to incorporate more powerful defenses and more intelligent cyber risk mitigation.

As your board and C-suite work to set effective cybersecurity policy, their decision-making must be informed with a clear understanding of security posture and the risk posed by third-party vendors. However, preparing reports for executives is challenging and time-consuming. Security and risk managers often lack the proper cyber risk metrics to facilitate data-driven conversations on risk, security gaps, and resource allocation.

Bitsight Security Ratings for Executive Reporting helps security teams communicate effectively with the board and C-suite so decision-making can happen quicker. Bitsight’s metrics make security performance understandable and accessible for all stakeholders. Customizable reports make it easy to set goals and requirements for effective cybersecurity policy.

Security ratings and cybersecurity policy

Security ratings are a data-driven, objective measurement of the security performance of an organization. Security ratings can help to manage cyber risk and establish cybersecurity policy, providing continuous measurement of third-party risk and internal security efforts.

Bitsight has pioneered the security ratings market since 2011. Today, Bitsight is the most widely adopted Security Ratings platform in the world. Derived from objective, verifiable information, Bitsight Security Ratings evaluate data from 120+ sources to provide insight into 23 risk factors across compromised systems, security diligence, user behavior, and data breaches. Security Ratings are calculated daily using a proprietary algorithm that weights each data point and generates a score from 250 to 900, with the current achievable range being 300-820. With Bitsight, organizations get the data and metrics they need to more effectively set cybersecurity policy.

The Bitsight Security Ratings platform

Bitsight Security Ratings are a data-driven, objective measurement of the security posture of an organization and its third-party vendors. Security Ratings provide continuous measurement of the organization’s security performance and the risk within its supply chain. With insight gleaned from Bitsight’s cybersecurity ratings, organizations can make faster and more strategic decisions about cyber security policy.

Bitsight Security Ratings are informed by data drawn from 120+ sources that provides insight into 23 risk vectors in four categories of security: compromised systems, user behavior, security diligence, and data breaches. Security ratings are calculated daily and range from 250 to 900, with the current achievable range being 300-820 – higher numbers indicate a stronger security posture and correlate to financial performance.

Bitsight Security Ratings play multiple roles in managing cyber security policy. For example, organizations can use Bitsight ratings to measure the effectiveness of a policy over time. Because Bitsight provides detailed cyber security assessment information about vulnerabilities such as botnet infections, malware servers, spam propagation, open ports, patching cadence, filesharing, and exposed credentials, security and risk team can also use Bitsight ratings to create and revise policy based on comprehensive visibility into the adapting risks within its digital ecosystem.

Setting cyber security policy with Bitsight

Bitsight Executive Reporting provides tools that help security and risk managers quickly and easily compile metrics for reports to executives and the Board. By making security performance reports accessible and contextual, Bitsight helps organizations review the effectiveness of cyber security policies with summaries of where the program successfully mitigated risk as well as where threats and vulnerabilities need remediation.

Executive Reports can provide information at a high level or with granular detail about compromised systems, vulnerabilities, security diligence, user behavior risks, network infrastructure, and domain infrastructure. Reporting in the Bitsight platform is intuitive, and users do not need specific technical knowledge to create reports. Reports can be customized by your security team looking to communicate specific points, or can generated from more than a dozen readily available reports, making it easy to communicate with leadership about the security performance of the organization and its vendor portfolio.

Why choose Bitsight?

Bitsight has been a leader in security ratings since 2011. Today, we are the most widely adopted Security Ratings solution. Many of the world’s largest organizations and governments trust us to offer a clear picture of their security posture. We supply the data they need for managing third-party risk, enhancing security performance, and refining cybersecurity policy.

Bitsight Security Ratings are used by:

• 2100+ customers worldwide
• Companies writing 50% of the world’s cyber insurance premiums
• 4 of the top 5 investment banks
• 25,000+ users
• All 4 of the Big 4 accounting firms
• 25% of Fortune 500 companies
• 20% of the world’s countries who trust Bitsight to protect national security