This week, we begin putting one of our most powerful problem-solving and investigative techniques to work – we start collaborating! Sharing ideas, letting the sparks fly from one mind’s eye to another and then to a third one — this is how great ideas are born and put into practice! We’ll use this approach during the remainder of this course as we continue to investigate the art and science of business continuity planning and disaster recovery management. We’ll do that via a simulation, as we join a team of investigators looking at a hypothetical company faced with some very real-world risks.
But making your team’s work successful really boils down to two simple ideas. First, how does a high-technology firm identify, carry out, and manage its information security and assurance efforts? And second, how does this relate to the firm’s need to plan for and achieve resiliency in the face of incidents, upsets, and disasters?
The rest is in the details…
How does Vology manage and validate their existing Infosec/IA processes?
During Modules 5 and 6, you’ll perform several tasks, all involved with learning about the information risks that Vology and its customers might face, so that you can then think about how to recommend information security and assurance support to them. In Module 5, we’ll focus on discovering what’s already in place. Module 6 will build on this as you develop an information risk management approach as part of Infosec/IA planning.
It helps if you put yourself mentally into the scenario. What do key people at Vology, or its customers and potential customers, want to achieve? How should their business objectives and goals help them prioritize their efforts?
This takes a fair bit of imagination. Play with this. Start to imagine what could go right, successfully, and also what could go wrong. Hypothesize about upsets or events that could start to turn into incidents, whether these are natural, administratively undesirable, and even downright criminal in source or effect. This may also require you to do some independent inquiry, via the Internet or the library, to help you develop your thinking and your scenarios.
It is strongly suggested that you share, early and often, what you are thinking. Talk to your teammates. Ask questions, seek help. You’re building an individual product, but that certainly shouldn’t stand in the way of “picking each other’s brains…” Just don’t copy each other’s work!!
