Now that your design and implementation are complete, you will transition to maintenance and monitoring mode. This is the day-to-day functioning and maintenance of your systems.
Patch/Change Management
I mentioned patch management in the design and implementation section, but this becomes a task in the day-to-day management of your systems as well. Depending on your systems, it is likely you will be patching them off-hours or during maintenance windows. Either way, before deploying your patch, you should always test the patching on a test system. Also, be sure to remember there are many pieces of software that could be over looked. Microsoft OS and application patches are more commonly done because they make it easy for the user. Microsoft has the biggest target on them, so by proxy, they have gotten really good at the process of rolling out their fixes. True, sometimes it feels like the patching will never end, but it beats the alternative or having a vendor not patch their systems when there are known issues. Now set aside the OS and consider all the other applications that are installed on your systems…Adobe Reader, Adobe Flash, CD Burning software, Firefox, iTunes and many others. There are solutions out there that will help you do patching above and beyond Operating System patching.
Change management is another function that is a routine or day-to-day function. Organizations vary on the formality of change management processes. Some are very formal, while others may not have anything formal at all. In all cases it is good to have some checks and balances of your change management program or process. If you are a small organization you may simply have something like a spreadsheet or helpdesk software in which you document what was changed on key systems. This helps you keep track of changes. It can also help you pinpoint problems in the event of a change breaking something in a production system. If you are in a larger organization, you may have forms that have to be filled out which detail the changes to be made, the impact, the estimated downtime and the back out procedures. Even after all that you still may need approval by a change management committee. Although most find this process painful, it can really help track changes and minimize unnecessary downtime.
Monitoring/Testing
Proactive care of your network includes Monitoring and Testing. The types of questions that you should continue to ask are:
- Are my systems working as designed? Are they protected against intruders? How do I know?
- Are my Policies effective? Are they being enforced? How do I know?
- Are my systems secured? How do I know?
- Was the response enough for a given security event?
- Are we compliant? How do I know?
Monitoring and Testing your systems and processes will help you tune your security program. Many organizations are required to have third-party penetration testing done in order to test their systems. Some organizations are not required to do third-party testing, yet they still will, or they will do their own internal testing. The organization has to determine if they have the competency in-house, or if they need to hire an outside organization to help with testing. Also they may have the skill set but not the time. Even if a third party is used for testing, it is still a good practice to do your own internal testing. There are many pieces of software, commercial and open source, that can assist you in performing an effective internal test.
Security Awareness & Continues Training
Having some type of awareness program is also critical. A well-informed user community makes the organization more secure.
A suggestion would be to send email updates of current security threats in the wild, replayed in laymen’s terms. It’s true some will just delete the email and not read it, but some will read it and benefit from the effort. Intranet sites as well as security updates or tips at departmental or quarterly meetings are also some good ideas. The goal is to raise awareness however you can. This will help you as a security professional and will also increase the company’s overall security in the long run.
In addition, organizations need to invest in their security personal by helping them stay up to speed with security training or allowing them to go to trade shows focused on security. The better informed everyone is, from the typical end-user to the security administrator, the better your chances are for a secure environment.
Rinse and Repeat
Throughout the whole process you should be evaluating your process, systems and procedures and fine tuning them. When designing, and then implementing, a program like this you will find that sometimes what you originally decided in a process or procedure may not function like it was intended. Continual tuning with help your program evolve and develop into a finely tuned security program.
Contact WDPI today at 1.888.210.7636, email us at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it , or contact your sales rep to learn how we can help you develop an effective security plan!

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