Information Security Awareness is a Business Need

In today’s business environment most of the Software Development Companies rely on electronically exchanged information. It is a requirement of all the departments to produce and pass information across different departments in a quick and secure manner to support their business decisions. Information plays an important role in making decisions. Therefore commercial companies and even the government departments have different classification of data based on its importance and use.

Business success depends upon continuity of operations and information provided to the business processes by information systems. The growth, excellence and efficiency of the business could be damaged due to the threats and misuse of information. Therefore, awareness program basically helps, set measures and educate users on how to behave and get benefit out of information without jeopardizing its confidentiality, integrity and availability.

The employees are the primary users of the information. A lack of awareness and mishandling of information could expose this information to competitors or get corrupted. If this information is freely available the following could be some of the impacts on the company and its business functions:

• The information available easily can be used by competitors to design strategies and launch new products with more features
• The company’s credibility can be affected from this disclosure
• Customer confidence can be lost
• Help competitors to gain more share in the market
• Suppliers and partner would be conscious to deal with the company
• Noncompliance to government and industry laws and standards
• Employees will lose trust and will look for other opportunities

In today’s competitive business environment for Software Development Companies to have a good reputation in the market and legal compliance is a major concern. Suppliers, partners and even clients ask proof of information security before making any transaction. They want to make sure that all the information given to the company will be protected and will be used only for the purpose it is provided.

Therefore need of successful and responsible Outsourcing Companies in India have well written security polices and procedure, run information security awareness program on a continuous basis and be conscious in protecting its information assets. Implementing a strong information security awareness program can be a very effective method to protect critical business secrets and it will help employees to understand:

• Why they need to take information security seriously
• What they gain from active participation and support
• How a secure environment helps them complete their assigned tasks

Note: The success of awareness program depends upon management’s consent and continuous support.