This security guidance booklet highlights the Defense in Depth best practices based on the 4 major categories; Infrastructure, Applications, Operations and People.

Each category is then further drilled down into the following subcategories:

Category

Importance to security

Infrastructure

Perimeter Defense

Perimeter defense addresses security at network borders, where your internal network connects to the outside world. This constitutes your first line of defense against intruders.

Authentication

Rigorous authentication procedures for users, administrators, and remote users help to ensure that outsiders do not gain unauthorized access to the network through the use of local or remote attacks.

Management & Monitoring

Management, monitoring, and proper logging are critical to maintaining and analyzing IT environments. These tools are even more important after an attack has occurred and incident analysis is required.

Applications

Deployment & Use

When business-critical applications are deployed in production, the security and availability of those applications and servers must be ensured. Continued maintenance is essential to help ensure that security bugs are patched and that new vulnerabilities are not introduced into the environment.

Application Design

Design that does not properly address security mechanisms such as authentication, authorization, and data validation can allow attackers to exploit security vulnerabilities and thereby gain access to sensitive information.

Data Storage

& Communications

Integrity and confidentiality of data is one of the greatest concerns for any business. Data loss or theft can hurt an organization's revenue as well as reputation. It is important to understand how applications handle business critical data and how that data is protected.

Operations

Environment

The security of an organization is dependent on the operational procedures, processes and guidelines that are applied to the environment. They can enhance the security of an organization by including more than just technology defenses. Accurate environment documentation and guidelines are critical to the operation team's ability to support and maintain the security of the environment.

Security Policy

Corporate security policy refers to individual policies and guidelines that exist to govern the secure and appropriate use of technology and processes within the organization. This area covers policies to address all types of security, such as user, system, and data.

Patch & Update Management

Good management of patches and updates is important to securing an organization's IT environment. The timely application of patches and updates is necessary to help protect against known and exploitable vulnerabilities.

Backup and Recovery

Data backup and recovery is essential to maintaining business continuity in the event of a disaster or hardware/software failure. Lack of appropriate backup and recovery procedures could lead to significant loss of data and productivity.

People

Requirements & Assessments

Security requirements should be understood by all decision-makers so that both their technical and business decisions enhance security rather than conflict with it. Regular assessments by a third party can help a company review, evaluate, and identify areas for improvement.

Policies and Procedures

Clear, practical procedures for managing relationships with vendors and partners can help limit your company's exposure to risk. Procedures covering employee hiring and termination can help protect your company from unscrupulous or disgruntled employees.

Training & Awareness

Employees should be trained and made aware of how security applies to their daily job activities so that they do not inadvertently expose their company to greater risks.