How confident are you that your information security program protects your business?

Sep 10, 2025

Too often, organizations focus on “checking the box” instead of solving real security problems. I once inherited an environment that banned wireless because it was “too risky,” yet every employee had local admin rights to make a legacy app work. There was no reason behind the risk decisions.

Building a Living, Evolving Information Security Program

Your information security program shouldn’t be static or based on an outdated framework. It needs to evolve continuously as technology, threats, and business priorities change. That evolution depends on having a clear process and reliable data to drive the right outcomes.

Key Business Outcomes

From a business perspective, an effective information security program should deliver four key outcomes:

Prioritization: Understanding which initiatives provide the most value and should be addressed first.
Resiliency: Reducing the likelihood of business impact for the most relevant threats.
Efficiency and Cost-Effectiveness: Ensuring resources and controls match the level of risk.
Alignment with the Business: Using internal context to understand the true impact of risks on operations.

At the center of it all sits the Information Security Policy — the document that defines intent, scope, and accountability. It sets expectations for how the organization manages information risk and provides the foundation for every process, control, and decision that follows.

The Importance of Reliable Inputs

To achieve these outcomes, your program needs a solid foundation built on high-quality data and a continuous risk and compliance management process. The policy gives direction, but data gives insight, and both are essential.

Your inputs must be accurate, current, and accessible. As the saying goes, “garbage in, garbage out.” Stopping mid-incident to question whether your data is valid will add time to any recovery or operations. It is critical that the capabilities that deliver the inputs are implemented upfront to ensure they're correct and available when it matters.

The core inputs for an information security program include:

Threats: Events that can affect your business. These range from physical threats (floods, fires, hurricanes) to information security threats (such as ransomware and AI threats).
Data Classification: Organizing data into buckets based on sensitivity levels and potential business impact.
Asset Management: Understanding what assets exist, how they support critical business functions, and how they factor into risk calculations.
Legal and Regulatory Requirements: Obligations driven by data types, industry regulations, and customer contracts.

The Risk and Compliance Process

A repeatable, well-managed risk and compliance process uses these inputs to produce measurable outcomes. At a high level, the process includes:

Discovery and Scoping: Identify data sources, identify likely threats, define scope, and set clear boundaries.
Assessment and Analysis: Define control requirements, evaluate control effectiveness, measure compliance, and classify risk for any identified weaknesses using data classification and asset information.
Reporting and Management: Document findings, approve risk treatment plans, and outline remediation steps.
Implementation and Remediation: Strengthen or introduce controls to meet defined standards.
Monitoring and Improvement: Track metrics and progress to ensure continuous refinement and improvement of the program.

The process restarts at a frequency that matches your maturity and capabilities. It makes no sense to reassess if you haven’t made progress on your remediations from the last assessment. Focus on the medium and high-risk remediation and drive them to completion. Then you can reassess and reset your priorities.

The Bottom Line

An effective information security program isn’t a one-time event; it needs to continuously improve. By grounding it in accurate data, updated policy, structured processes, and clear alignment with business goals, you create a program that not only manages risk but also strengthens trust and resilience over time.

Where to Start?

Starting with the inputs is key, as this is the foundation. Knowing your threats, data types, assets, and legal and regulatory requirements will enable and enhance the program's operations. If you need any help, Contact us.