PRAGMATIC Security Metrics: Applying Metametrics to Information Security

Packed with time-saving tips, the book offers easy-to-follow guidance for those struggling with security metrics. Step by step, it clearly explains how to specify, develop, use, and maintain an information security measurement system (a comprehensive suite of metrics) to help:

• Security professionals systematically improve information security, demonstrate the value they are adding, and gain management support for the things that need to be done
• Management address previously unsolvable problems rationally, making critical decisions such as resource allocation and prioritization of security relative to other business activities
• Stakeholders, both within and outside the organization, be assured that information security is being competently managed

The PRAGMATIC approach lets you hone in on your problem areas and identify the few metrics that will generate real business value. The book:

• Helps you figure out exactly what needs to be measured, how to measure it, and most importantly, why it needs to be measured
• Scores and ranks more than 150 candidate security metrics to demonstrate the value of the PRAGMATIC method
• Highlights security metrics that are widely used and recommended, yet turn out to be rather poor in practice
• Describes innovative and flexible measurement approaches such as capability maturity metrics with continuous scales
• Explains how to minimize both measurement and security risks using complementary metrics for greater assurance in critical areas such as governance and compliance

In addition to its obvious utility in the information security realm, the PRAGMATIC approach, introduced for the first time in this book, has broader application across diverse fields of management including finance, human resources, engineering, and production¡ªin fact any area that suffers a surplus of data but a deficit of useful information.

About the Author

Krag Brotby has 30 years of experience in the area of enterprise computer security architecture, governance, risk, and metrics and is a Certified Information Security Manager (CISM) and Certified in the Governance of Enterprise Information Technology qualifications. Krag is a CISM trainer and has developed a number of related courses in governance, metrics, governance©\risk©\compliance (GRC), and risk and trained thousands on five continents during the past decade.

Krag¡¯s experience includes intensive involvement in current and emerging security architectures, IT and information security metrics, and governance. He holds a foundation patent for digital rights management and has published a variety of technical and IT security-related articles and books. Brotby has served as principal author and editor of the Certified Information Security Manager Review Manual (ISACA 2012) since 2005, and is the researcher and author of the widely circulated Information Security Governance: Guidance for Boards of Directors and Executive Management (ITGI 2006), and Information Security Governance: Guidance for Information Security Managers (ITGI 2008a) as well as a new approach to Information Security Management Metrics (Brotby 2009a) and Information Security Governance; A Practical Development and Implementation Approach (Brotby 2009b).

Krag has served on ISACA¡¯s Security Practice Development Committee. He was appointed to the Test Enhancement Committee, responsible for testing development, and to the committee developing a systems approach to information security called the Business Model for Information Security (BMIS). He received the 2009 ISACA John W. Lainhart IV Common Body of Knowledge Award for noteworthy contributions to the information security body of knowledge for the benefit of the global information security community.

Krag is a member of the California High Tech Task Force Steering Committee, an advisory board for law enforcement. He is a frequent workshop presenter and speaker at conferences globally and lectures on information security governance; metrics; information security management; and GRC and CISM preparation throughout Oceania, Asia, Europe, the Middle East, and North America. As a practitioner in the security industry for three decades, Krag was the principal Xerox BASIA enterprise security architect and managed the proof-of-concept project, pilot, and global PKI implementation plan. He was a principal architect of the SWIFT Next Gen PKI security architecture; served as technical director at RAND Corporation for the cyber assurance initiative; as chief security strategist, was the PKI architect for TransactPlus, a J.P. Morgan spinoff; and developed policies and standards for a number of organizations, including the Australian Post Office and several U.S. banks.

Recent consulting engagements include security governance projects for the Australia Post, New Zealand Inland Revenue, and Singapore Infocom Development Agency. Clients have included Microsoft, Unisys, AT&T, BP Alyeska, Countrywide Financial, Informix, Visa, VeriSign, Digital Signature Trust, Zantaz, Bank Al-Bilad, J.P. Morgan Chase, KeyBank, Certicom, and Paycom, among others. He has served on the board of advisors for Signet Assurance and has been involved in significant trade secret theft cases in the Silicon Valley.

Gary Hinson¡ªDespite his largely technical background, Dr. Gary Hinson, PhD, MBA, CISSP, has an abiding interest in human factors¡ªthe people side as opposed to the purely technical aspects of information security and governance. Gary¡¯s professional career stretches back to the mid-1980s as both a practitioner and manager in the fields of IT system and network administration, information security, and IT auditing. He has worked for some well-known multinationals in the pharmaceuticals/life sciences, utilities, IT, engineering, defense, and financial services industries, mostly in the United Kingdom and Europe. He emigrated to New Zealand in 2005 and now lives on a "lifestyle block" surrounded by more sheep than people.

In the course of his work, Gary has developed or picked up and used a variety of information security metrics. Admittedly, they didn¡¯t all work out, but such is the nature of this developing field (Hinson 2006). In relation to programs to implement information security management systems, for example, Gary had some success using conventional project management metrics to guide the implementation activities and discuss progress with senior managers. However, management seemed curiously disinterested in measuring the business benefits achieved by their security investments despite Gary having laid out the basis for measurement in the original business cases. And so started his search for a better way.

Since 2000, Gary has been consulting in information security, originally for a specialist security consultancy in London and then for IsecT Ltd., his own firm. Gary designed, developed, and, in 2003, launched NoticeBored (www.NoticeBored.com), an innovative information security awareness subscription service. NoticeBored has kept him busy ever since, researching and writing awareness materials for subscribers covering a different information security topic each month. One of the regular monthly awareness deliverables from NoticeBored is a management-level awareness briefing proposing and discussing potential metrics associated with each month¡¯s information security topic¡ªfor example, a suite of metrics concerning the management of incidents was delivered with a host of other awareness materials about incident management.

Gary has been a passionate fan of the ISO/IEC 27000-series "ISO27k" information security management standards since shortly before BS 7799 was first released nearly two decades ago. He contributes to the continued development of ISO27k through New Zealand¡¯s membership of SC27, the ISO/IEC committee responsible for them, although he arrived in NZ too late to influence ISO/IEC 27004:2009 on information security measurements, unfortunately (we have more to say on ¡¯27004 below!). To find out what ISO27k can do for your organization, visit www.ISO27001security.com to explore the standards, find out about new developments, and join ISO27k Forum, the email reflector for a global user group.

Before all that, Gary was a scientist researching bacterial genetics at the universities of York and Leicester in the United Kingdom. He has long since lost touch with the cut and thrust of gene cloning, DNA fingerprinting, and all that, but despite recently discovering his creative streak through NoticeBored, the rational scientist and metrician still lurks deep within him. So seven years of university study was not a total waste after all.