Information is one of an organization’s most important assets. Protection of information assets is necessary to establish and maintain trust between the organization and its customers, maintain compliance with the law, and protect the reputation of the organization. Timely and reliable information is necessary to process transactions and support organization and customer decisions. An organization’s earnings and capital can be adversely affected if information becomes known to unauthorized parties, is altered, or is not available when it is needed.

Information security is the process, by which an organization protects and secures its systems, media, and facilities that process and maintain information vital to its operations.

Organizations often inaccurately perceive information security as the state or condition of controls at a point in time. Security is an ongoing process, whereby the condition of an organization’s controls is just one indicator of its overall security posture. Other indicators include the ability of the organization to continually assess its posture and react appropriately in the face of rapidly changing threats, technologies, and business conditions.

The purpose of an information security program is to:

1. Establish an organization-wide approach to ensure the accuracy, security and protection of information in the organization’s custody, regardless of format.
2. Prevent and protect against any anticipated threats and hazards to the security or integrity of organizational information.
3. Ensure organization-wide compliance to applicable laws, regulations, policies and practices.
4. Prevent and protect against the unauthorized access to or use of organization information, including confidential and personal information.

This seminar addresses the ways and means of developing an information security program that enables an organization to meet its business objectives by implementing business systems with due consideration of information technology (IT)-related risks to the organization, business and trading partners, technology service providers, and customers.