Information Security Standards

The term "standard" is sometimes used within the context of information security policies to distinguish between written policies, standards and procedures. Organizations should maintain all three levels of documentation to help secure their environment. Information security policies are high-level statements or rules about protecting people or systems. (For example, a policy would state that "Company X will maintain secure passwords") A "standard" is a low-level prescription for the various ways the company will enforce the given policy. (For example, "Passwords will be at least 8 characters, and require at least one number.") A "procedure" can describe a step-by-step method to implementing various standards. (For example, "Company X will enable password length controls on all production Windows systems.")

This use of the term "standard" differs from use of the term as it relates to information security and privacy frameworks, such as ISO 17799 or COBIT.

Famous quotes containing the words information, security and/or standards:

    Phenomenal nature shadows him wherever he goes. Clouds in the staring sky transmit to one another, by means of slow signs, incredibly detailed information regarding him. His inmost thoughts are discussed at nightfall, in manual alphabet, by darkly gesticulating trees. Pebbles or stains or sunflecks form patterns representing in some awful way messages which he must intercept. Everything is a cipher and of everything he is the theme.
    Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977)

    ...I lost myself in my work and never felt that marriage would give me the security I wanted. I thought that through the trade union movement we working women could get better conditions and security of mind.
    Mary Anderson (1872–1964)

    The standards of His Majesty’s taste made all those ladies who aspired to his favour, and who were near the Statutable size, strain and swell themselves, like the frogs in the fable, to rival and bulk and dignity of the ox. Some succeeded, and others burst.
    Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl Chesterfield (1694–1773)