Today’s economy depends on the secure flow of information within and across organizations.Security is a key concern in all corporate activities. Apart from monitoring and controlling the commercial undertakings of firms, corporate governance plays a vital role in safeguarding the security of all organizational activities. It is instrumental for stakeholders to understand the essentials of information technology implementation for organizations to benefit from technology maximally. Every stakeholder stands to lose if the security of the firm is breached. In this respect, it is instrumental to involve all stakeholders in information technology governance to promote collective and harmonious decisions making process.
Availability implies that the authorized subjects should have access to organizational objects in a timely and uninterrupted manner. Security is a vital aspect of organizational governance. Organizations have the responsibility of ensuring that unauthorized subjects do not access their assets and information. The effective adoption and governance of information technology are instrumental in enhancing organizational security measures. Addressing security ensure that organizations do not incur losses through fraudulent transactions or activities.
Technology is revolutionizing corporate governance in the contemporary society. The adoption of information technology by organizations has attained mixed results based implementation efficiency. For some institutions, information technology utilization has enhanced their communication, service delivery, and security measures. On the other hand, information technology has resulted in controversies such as privacy breach and increased operational costs in some organizations. Despite these variations in the effect of information technology use by corporations, technology remains an essential component of modern corporate governance. Consequently, it is instrumental for stakeholders to understand the essentials of information technology implementation for organizations to benefit from technology maximally.
Security is a key concern in all corporate activities. Apart from monitoring and controlling the commercial undertakings of firms, corporate governance plays a vital role in safeguarding the security of all organizational activities. For instance, it is the role of corporate governance to ensure that all transactions between the firm and its customers are secure. Therefore, most firms have turned to information technology to address the security interests of their stakeholders. Information technology use can either enhance the security of organizations or degrade it. As a result, it is advisable for corporate governance to observe the security governance principles.
According to Business Software Alliance (n.d.), today’s economy depends on the secure flow of information within and across organizations. As a result, organizations are directed to observe the security governance principles to warrant the safety of their information flow. The three primary security principles are confidentiality, integrity, and availability. The efficiency and effectiveness of security control activities in organizations are evaluated based on how they address these three key tenets. Security measures must offer confidentiality. This view implies that all security measures must offer a high level of assurance that information and all organizational resources are safe from unauthorized access. In this respect, only the authorized individuals should access organization resources and information. For instance, in workplaces, there are information and resources whose access is only limited to senior management.
On the other hand, integrity implies that security actions should ensure that information is safe, accurate and reliable. In accordance with Business Software Alliance (n.d.), the integrity principle prevents illegal alteration of data by unauthorized or authorized subjects. Organizational data and resources need to be maintained in their original format. Finally, the third principle, which is availability, implies that the authorized subjects should have access to organizational objects in a timely and uninterrupted manner.
Principally, security governance in organizations is closely related to information technology use. In fact, a significant percentage of organizational security measures utilize information technology components. Importantly, information technology governance is a sensitive practice that needs to involve all stakeholders. As IT Governance Institute (2008) point out, implementing good IT governance is almost impossible without applying an effective governance framework. In an effective governance framework, all stakeholders are adequately involved in decision-making. As a result, they know their roles appropriately.
In practice, each stakeholder has a role to play in securing the activities of a firm. Moreover, every stakeholder stands to lose if the security of the firm is breached. In this respect, it is instrumental to involve all stakeholders in information technology governance to promote collective and harmonious decisions making process. According to IT Governance Institute (2008), involving all stakeholders ensures that each player knows which role they play, how decisions are made, and who is responsible for making these decisions. In this view, involving all stakeholders in IT governance eradicates any loophole that can the compromise the safety of the firm’s information. By involving all stakeholders, all individuals know their roles and the boundaries that they should not cross when dealing which organizational information or objects.
The effective adoption and governance of information technology are instrumental in enhancing organizational security measures. In accordance with Business Software Alliance (n.d.), secure and trusted business environment for stored and shared information enhances customers confidence, thus serves as a competitive strategy. In the current business environment, customers prefer to transact with companies that warrant the safety of their sensitive data such as bank information. Moreover, a secure business setting eradicates the chances of incurring losses through fraudulent activities.
Consequently, managers need to have exceptional informational technology governance skills. However, most managers, particularly, those in the non-technical sector illustrate inadequate information technology governance skills ISACA (2012). These individuals perceive informational technology governance as technical tasks that require advanced technological knowledge. However, I would explain to managers that information technology governance is just like other management tasks. In this respect, it requires close cooperation between the management and other stakeholders in their organizations.
Moreover, would recommend that managers seek guidance on key informational technology aspects from IT security professionals. In reality, it is almost impossible to implement effective security governance policies and frameworks without having some knowledge of how the technology operates. In this respect, the IT security professionals serve as the advisors of the managers when they are developing information technology governance policies and frameworks. Moreover, these IT security professionals are responsible for updating the manager on the recent trends in the information technology. Such updates are instrumental in ensuring that all organizational IT governance initiatives align with the changes in information technology.
Security is a vital aspect of organizational governance. Organizations have the responsibility of ensuring that unauthorized subjects do not access their assets and information. Moreover, in the modern technology dominated business environment where most business transactions are done online, security serves as a competitive strategy. Furthermore, addressing security ensure that organizations do not incur losses through fraudulent transactions or activities.
