As the value of the information portfolio has increased, IT security has changed from a product focus to a business management process. Today, IT security is not just about controlling internal access to data and systems but managing a portfolio of services including wireless networks, cyberterrorism protection and business continuity planning case of disaster.

With this new perspective, the role of IT executives has changes from protecting against external threats to building trusted security infrastructures linked to business processes driving financial returns. As technology continues to expand in complexity, databases increase in value, and as information privacy liability broadens exponentially, security processes developed during the last century will not work. And in the context of the 9/11 attacks, IT leaders must prepare their organizations for previously unimagined situations. IT security has become both a necessary service and a business revenue opportunity. Balancing both perspectives requires a business portfolio approach to managing investment with income, user access with control, and trust with authentication. This book is a collection of interviews of corporate IT security practitioners offering various viewpoints on successes and failures in managing IT security in organizations.

About the Author

Lawrence M. Oliva is director of Infrastructure Project Management for the CSC PRIME Alliance Project, which is focused on modernizing many of the U.S. Treasury Department’s communications and computing infrastructure. He has more than 25 years of experience with information security practices and procedures from both the technical and executive management perspectives, and has implemented many of the security management best practices mentioned in this book. As a certified project management professional (PMP), Oliva has managed several extraordinarily high-risk, mission-critical projects up to $160 million in budget. As vice president for a computer security firm developing biometric security solutions, his team developed and delivered procedures to quickly, securely and inexpensively migrate hundreds of financial and health care IT users from password-only conditions to multi-factor, high security biometric access environments. He is a faculty member at the University of Phoenix.