In May 2016, the Australian government released a new version of its Information Security Manual - guidance on information security and governance. The manual has become the backbone of recommended security guidance in addition to the Australian Signals Directorate’s “Essential Eight” for securing organisations in the public and private sector.
While the security community recognises the effectiveness of many standards – from SANS to CIS to NIST – the Australian government has made significant advances in bringing its organisations in compliance with best practices. The benefits of government research have been translated into this manual and what all organisations should consider for workflow, processes and accountability. If we consider that the next generation economy is now the backbone of commerce and government (and military in many respects), we need a way to do business and mitigate any risks from our adversaries that can exploit our assets, users, and resources.
ISM Helps Ensure a Standard Methodology for Defending Against Cyberattacks
As assessment, mitigation, remediation, and privilege management functions continue to improve, so do threats from potential threat actors. This requires security practitioners to be vigilant, flexible, proactive, and responsible for all the resources under their management; including outsourced assets. A resilient security posture is not a trivial process considering all these permutations. By continually reviewing our defences, hardening and testing modern attack methods, and mitigating the risks in a timely manner, we will help our chances of successfully surviving an attack at any given time or place. The principles provided by the Australian Information Security Manual (ISM) help ensure a standard methodology to achieve success.
To that end, the ISM is comprised of three primary documents designed to provide guidance on cyber security to government agencies and corporations in Austrlia, according to their own business requirements. The third document –
BeyondTrust Solutions Map into ISM Requirements
BeyondTrust’s PowerBroker privileged access management and Retina vulnerability management solutions can assist in meeting the requirements in the ISM controls and directly help achieve compliance in the following disciplines, outlined in the “Information Security Principles” guideline document:
- Outsourced Requirements
- System Accreditation
- Vulnerability Management
- Change Management
- Cyber Security Incidents
- Application Control
- Software Security
- Access Control
- Secure Administration
- Network Security
- Working Off-Site
For more information on how BeyondTrust can help organisations achieve compliance in accordance with ISM recommendations, contact us today for a strategy session.
Morey J. Haber, Chief Security Officer, BeyondTrust
Morey J. Haber is the Chief Security Officer at BeyondTrust. He has more than 25 years of IT industry experience and has authored three books: Privileged Attack Vectors, Asset Attack Vectors, and Identity Attack Vectors. He is a founding member of the industry group Transparency in Cyber, and in 2020 was elected to the Identity Defined Security Alliance (IDSA) Executive Advisory Board. Morey currently oversees BeyondTrust security and governance for corporate and cloud based solutions and regularly consults for global periodicals and media. He originally joined BeyondTrust in 2012 as a part of the eEye Digital Security acquisition where he served as a Product Owner and Solutions Engineer since 2004. Prior to eEye, he was Beta Development Manager for Computer Associates, Inc. He began his career as Reliability and Maintainability Engineer for a government contractor building flight and training simulators. He earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical Engineering from the State University of New York at Stony Brook.
