Security controls

Security controls are safeguards or countermeasures to avoid, counteract or minimize security risks.

To help review or design security controls, they can be classified by several criteria, for example according to the time that they act, relative to a security incident:

(Some security professionals would add further categories such as deterrent controls and compensation. Others argue that these are subsidiary categories. This is simply a matter of semantics.)

Security controls can also be categorized according to their nature, for example:

A similar categorization distinguishes control involving people, technology and operations/processes.

Information security controls protect the confidentiality, integrity and/or availability of information (the so-called CIA Triad). Again, some would add further categories such as non-repudiation and accountability, depending on how narrowly or broadly the CIA Triad is defined.

Risk-aware organizations may choose proactively to specify, design, implement, operate and maintain their security controls, usually by assessing the risks and implementing a comprehensive security management framework such as ISO/IEC 27002, the Information Security Forum's Standard of Good Practice for Information Security and NIST SP 800-53 (more below). Organizations may also opt to demonstrate the adequacy of their information security controls by being independently assessed against certification standards such as ISO/IEC 27001.

In telecommunications, security controls are defined as Security services as part of OSI Reference model by ITU-T X.800 Recommendation. X.800 and ISO ISO 7498-2 (Information processing systems – Open systems interconnection – Basic Reference Model – Part 2: Security architecture are technically aligned.

Contents

Information security standards and control frameworks

Numerous information security standards promote good security practices and define frameworks or systems to structure the analysis and design for managing information security controls. Some of the most well known are outlined below.

International information security standards

ISO/IEC 27001

  1. Risk assessment and treatment - analysis of the organization's information security risks
  2. Security policy - management direction
  3. Organization of information security - governance of information security
  4. Asset management - inventory and classification of information assets
  5. Human resources security - security aspects for employees joining, moving and leaving an organization
  6. Physical and environmental security - protection of the computer facilities
  7. Communications and operations management - management of technical security controls in systems and networks
  8. Access control - restriction of access rights to networks, systems, applications, functions and data
  9. Information systems acquisition, development and maintenance - building security into applications
  10. Information security incident management - anticipating and responding appropriately to information security breaches
  11. Business continuity management - protecting, maintaining and recovering business-critical processes and systems
  12. Compliance - ensuring conformance with information security policies, standards, laws and regulations

U.S. Federal Government information security standards

From NIST Special Publication SP 800-53 revision 3.

  1. AC Access Control
  2. AT Awareness and Training
  3. AU Audit and Accountability
  4. CA Certification, Accreditation, and Security Assessments
  5. CM Configuration Management
  6. CP Contingency Planning
  7. IA Identification and Authentication
  8. IR Incident Response
  9. MA Maintenance
  10. MP Media Protection
  11. PE Physical and Environmental Protection
  12. PL Planning
  13. PS Personnel Security
  14. RA Risk Assessment
  15. SA System and Services Acquisition
  16. SC System and Communications Protection
  17. SI System and Information Integrity
  18. PM Program Management

U.S. Department of Defense information security standards

From DoD Instruction 8500.2 [1] there are 8 Information Assurance (IA) areas and the controls are referred to as IA controls.

  1. DC Security Design & Configuration
  2. IA Identification and Authentication
  3. EC Enclave and Computing Environment
  4. EB Enclave Boundary Defense
  5. PE Physical and Environmental
  6. PR Personnel
  7. CO Continuity
  8. VI Vulnerability and Incident Management

DoD assigns the IA control per CIA Triad leg.

See also

References