Information Security Process Maturity: A Best-Practice Standard

The security industry is quickly coalescing around process maturity as the standard for measuring the strength of security programs. Investment in mature business processes (vs. audit controls) builds long-term security capacity far better than one-time compliance efforts do.

Secure Digital Solutions (SDS) has been at the forefront of maturity-based consulting, today offering a baseline Maturity Assessment, Profile, and Plan (MAPP) to all our clients. We’ve made the three-step MAPP process rapid, reliable, and repeatable with our automation platform, TrustMAPP™.

Assess – Survey templates quickly gather information from those responsible for security processes. Critical business functions and IT assets are benchmarked against the gold-standard COBIT maturity model from ISACA. The templates are pre-configured to the NIST Cyber Security Framework and ISO27001, as well as industry-specific regulations such as GLBA, HIPAA, PCI DSS, GLBA, FFIEC, FISMA, and SOX.

Rear view of the brunette girl who is looking at the solution of the maze. Concrete background.

Profile – Each business process, identified from your chosen regulatory and control framework, is scored on the six dimensions of maturity defined by COBIT: awareness, policy and procedures, automation, expertise, accountability, and measurability. We provide meaningful visual summaries of security status and investment needs for effective communication with executives. Do trend analysis in your unique profile, and see process improvements over time.

Plan – Recommendations for security improvements are prioritized by highest business impact and delivered with cost estimates—forming the foundation for strategic plans and budgets that advance maturity goals. SDS and its proprietary platform Accliviti empower the CISO with a clear picture of the organization’s security posture, including trending analysis, planning and budgeting, and built-in support for multiple frameworks.

To learn more about MAPP, reach out for a conversation with SDS.