On Wed, 07 Apr 2010 10:24:00 EDT, Keith Tomler said: > BALONEY > As an Information Systems Auditor, it seems that if you have a valid > finding and a reasonable recommendation, management usually doesn't > act on it. > However, if you have the same finding and recommendation and then cite > a regulation, management is forced to act upon it. > I believe that the regulations were drafted in order to force entities > into doing what they should have done in the first place. I think the issue is a bit deeper than that - the way most regulations are drafted, they do *not* force entities to do what they should have done in the first place. What they *do* force is implementing a checkbox. Whether said checkbox is actually the best solution *for the actual problem* is the issue. I've seen cases where checkbox auditors insisted that a certain critical system "absolutely positively *HAD* to have a firewall". Even though the the owners of the system were *more* paranoid, and had done an even more thorough securing of the system by not even having a network connection to the machine. > I should not have to cite regulations in order to make sure logs are > being reviewed, Now stop for a moment - what is the *reason* for logs being reviewed? Is it acceptable to *not* review logs if there's a suitable "throw alert on exception" mechanism in place? Which is actually more long-term cost effective security for the organization? That's the problem with most of the regulations - they enforce checkboxes, not actually dealing with the overall security posture in a sane way.
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