Operational Security
Operational security is a set of processes conducted to set up protection mechanisms to protect sensitive information. Operational security let the security officers analyze operations from the angle of the adversary so that the loopholes in the operations can be detected. The operational security is categorized into five steps, as follow:
- Sensitive Data Identification: The first step in operational security is to identify all the data that is sensitive to the organization. It may include financial statements, product research, employees information, customers information, and similar others.
- Possible Threats Identification: Once an organization knows the list of sensitive data, the next step is to find out the possible threats against each specific sensitive data. It includes research on insider and third-party threats.
- Find Security Loopholes/Vulnerabilities: The next step is to identify the loopholes in the current organization’s security infrastructure that can be used by attackers to get hands on the sensitive data.
- Assess Risks: Rank each of the identified security loopholes/vulnerabilities based on the threat level. They can be ranked via evaluating different factors, such as the extent of damage, chances of occurrence, and similar others.
- Develop the Effective Security Strategies: After knowing the sensitive data, possible threats, and system loopholes, the security managers are in a better stage to develop the right and effective security strategies that can address all these shortcomings as accurately as possible.
Operational security is meant to identify threats before their occurrence by letting security officers dig deeper into their operations and find all the data that is vulnerable to threats.