Information Systems Security Assessment Framework (ISSAF) Draft0.1

From: Balwant Rathore (balwant@oissg.org)
Date: Mon Jan 03 2005 - 14:00:34 EST


Dear All,

I am glad to share with you that on this Christmas we have released
Information Systems Security Assessment Framework (ISSAF) Draft0.1. It
can be downloaded from: http://www.oissg.org/issaf. We plan to release
draft0.2 in the end of this month after improving some existing and
adding some new sections. Any contribution, suggestion, comments,
feedback will be highly appreciated at feedback@oissg.org

Preface:
Today, the evaluation of Information Systems (IS) security in accordance
with business requirements is a vital component of any organizations
business strategy. While there are a few information security assessment
standards, methodologies and frameworks that talk about what areas of
security must be considered, they do not contain specifics on HOW and
WHY existing security measures should be assessed, nor do they recommend
controls to safeguard them.

The Information System Security Assessment Framework (ISSAF) is a peer
reviewed structured framework that categorizes information system
security assessment into various domains & details specific evaluation
or testing criteria for each of these domains. It aims to provide field
inputs on security assessment that reflect real life scenarios. ISSAF
should primarily be used to fulfill an organization's security
assessment requirements and may additionally be used as a reference for
meeting other information security needs. ISSAF includes the crucial
facet of security processes and, their assessment and hardening to get a
complete picture of the vulnerabilities that might exists.

The information in ISSAF is organized into well defined evaluation
criteria, each of which has been reviewed by subject matter experts in
that domain. These evaluation criteria include:
* A description of the evaluation criteria.
* Its aims & objectives
* The pre-requisites for conducting the evaluations
* The process for the evaluation
* Displays the expected results
* Recommended countermeasures
* References to external documents

A draft version of this framework is available at OISSG website at:
http://www.oissg.org/issaf

The Information System Security Assessment Framework (ISSAF) is an
evolving document that will be expanded, amended and updated in future.
To improve the usefulness of the future release of ISSAF, please take a
moment to evaluate it. Your feedback is invaluable to OISSG's efforts to
fully serve the profession and future ISSAF releases. The feedback form
is given at the end of ISSAF; please email your feedback at
feedback@oissg.org. We will get back to you ASAP.

Introduction to OISSG:

Open Information Systems Security Group (OISSG) is an independent and
non profit organization with vision to spread information security
awareness by hosting an environment where security enthusiasts from all
over the globe share and build knowledge.

Thanking you.
Respectfully,

Balwant Rathore
Open Information Systems Security Group
www.oissg.org <http://www.oissg.org/>



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