Five Tips to Bridge the Gap Between InfoSec and IT
It’s a sad reality of the modern Cybersecurity world that IT and Infosec are seen as two separate, often disparate functions that ideally operate independently of, and at worst appear to be at loggerheads with each other.
This is undoubtedly a mistake that needs to be rectified. More often than not, IT professionals find themselves on the opposite side of the fence as compared to InfoSec professionals. One may wonder why this divide happens. The cause usually lies in the perception that is accorded to the two functions.
While IT is considered to be more concerned with ensuring the smooth, day-to-day operations of the organization’s digital infrastructure, InfoSec is taken to be a function that deals with providing the adequate levels of security to business information. As everyone knows, usability is often the enemy of secure data practices; for this reason, the two disciplines are considered to be at odds with each other.
This is a serious misconception. When seen clearly, the ultimate goal of both InfoSec and IT remain the same: i.e. to guarantee the safe operation of the organization’s digital assets. Therefore, in order to help your organization bridge the gaps between IT and InfoSec, here are five tips that can certainly advance you along the path to that goal.
Ensure Communication
Better communication is the key to solving a host of problems. By ensuring smooth and effective communication between the InfoSec and IT departments, you can achieve greater synergy between the two teams.
Be Empathetic
InfoSec and IT professionals need to understand the problems faced by either side, and should learn to work together on their shared objective of achieving digital security. It is only through empathetic collaboration that organizations can guarantee synchronicity between the operations of the two departments.
Adequate Training
Lack of proper training can often become an obstacle that contributes towards increasing the gap between IT and InfoSec. Untrained employees with a half-baked understanding of their responsibilities can actually cause more harm than good. Therefore, be sure to provide the adequate levels of training to professionals from both departments.
Have a Well-defined Security Framework
A well-defined security framework can work wonders for both departments. Knowing what to do in the case of an emergency, together with an understanding of individual responsibilities as are laid down in the security framework, is essential for security success.
Educate Yourself
Don’t rely on tips alone to help you through this problem. Educate yourself with relevant literature that you can find on this topic. On that note, we have a brilliant resource on this very subject that you can download in the form of an eBook from here. Be sure to check it out.
Final Words
IT and InfoSec are but two sides of the same coin. Treating them as separate functions is only going to increase the differences between the two operations and a collaborative approach should be taken to bridge the gaps between the two.