Information Assurance Handbook: Effective Computer Security and Risk Management Strategies

CHAPTER 8

Approaches to Implementing Information Assurance

In implementing an information assurance program, the approach taken also plays an important role. Organizations can use a top-down or bottom-up approach to implement and execute information assurance.

Selecting a suitable approach depends on an organization’s requirements. Sometimes a hybrid is the right decision. For example, a large multinational organization with branches in different countries might select a top-down approach to match general corporate security requirements, while the bottom-up approach is used at the same time to meet local security requirements within specific economies.

This chapter focuses on the key components of an information assurance implementation followed ...