Securing E-Business Systems: A Guide for Managers and Executives

"This is a must-read for the entire CXO community if businesses are to survive in cyberspace. Attack methodologies and the cyber threat poised against our business systems are advancing rapidly. Business leaders are soon to face downstream liability issues for the damage their unprotected and exploited systems cause not only to themselves but to all of those with whom they do business in cyberspace. American businesses are now the target of choice by our nation's enemies. We may secure the airways, ports, and borders, but only the boardrooms of America can ensure the survival of our economy." -John R. Thomas, Colonel, U.S. Army, Retired, Former Commander of the DoD, Global Operations and Security Center

Today's e-business depends on the security of its networks and information technology infrastructure to safeguard its customers and its profits. But with rapid innovation and the emergence of new threats and new countermeasures, keeping up with security is becoming more complex than ever. Securing E-Business Systems offers a new model for developing a proactive program of security administration that works as a continuous process of identifying weaknesses and implementing solutions. This book offers a real, working design for managing an IT security program with the attention it truly warrants, treating security as a constant function that adapts to meet a company's changing security needs.

Topics include:
* Security weaknesses
* Safeguarding technologies
* Countermeasure best practices
* Establishing an adaptable e-business security management program
* Essential elements of a corporate security management program
* Functions, structure, staffing, and contracting considerations in security management
* Implementing intrusion detection technology
* Designing tomorrow's e-business application for secured operations
* Contemporary rationales for justifying increased spending on security programs
* Emerging liability issues for e-businesses

Securing E-Business Systems takes a pragmatic approach to a highly complex and ever-changing subject-the security of e-business networks and IT systems. With new threats, new dangers, and new capabilities arising virtually daily, keeping systems secure can be a challenge. This book proposes a new approach to e-business security, an approach founded on good management and built-in adaptability.

A successful e-business must be capable of managing the myriad risks associated with its growing dependency on information and communications technology by ensuring the continued integrity of its information, processes, and supporting IT infrastructure. Securing E-Business Systems presents a model for a proactive program of security administration that remains constantly alert for new vulnerabilities and capable of rapidly employing safeguards.

Timothy Braithwaite presents persuasive reasons why all e-businesses should control and manage IT security just as strictly and as thoughtfully as they would any other component of the company. He also offers methods and ideas that will help managers establish and sustain security management processes and procedures that will outlive the crisis of the moment and adapt to the changing security needs of an e-business over time.

For managers and executives concerned with the security of their e-business, Securing E-Business Systems offers unparalleled guidance, practical plans, and expert information on all the major issues, including:

* Components of an e-business infrastructure and the corresponding areas of greatest risk

* Oversight review models to ensure that e-business applications are designed, programmed, integrated, tested, and implemented with risk and security in mind

* Tips on justifying the expenditures required to establish and administer a program of effective and efficient e-business security controls

* Emerging liability issues that may arise from lack of security

* Best practices, sample guidelines, and ready-to-use forms and checklists

TIMOTHY BRAITHWAITE has spent more than fifteen years in senior security management positions and another twenty years in executive director positions for computer and communications services organizations in both the public and private sectors. He has also worked as a private consultant. Tim has previously published The Power of IT: Maximizing Your Technology Investments and Evaluating the Year 2000 Project: A Management Guide for Determining Reasonable Care (Wiley).