Factors contributing to the success of information security management implementation

Abstract

Information Security Management (ISM) concerns shielding the integrity, confidentiality, availability, authenticity, reliability and accountability of the organisation's information from unauthorised access in order to ensure business continuity and customers' confidence. The importance of information security (IS) in today's situation should be given due attention. Recognising its importance, organisations nowadays have devoted wide efforts in protecting their information. They establish information security policy, processes, and procedures as well as reengineer their organisational structures to align with ISM principles. Regardless of the efforts, security incidents continue to occur in many organisations. This phenomenon shows that the current implementation of ISM is still ineffective due to unaware of the factors contributing to the success of ISM. Thus, the objective of this paper is to identify ISM success factors and their elements through a large-scale survey. The survey involves 243 practitioners from statutory bodies, public and private organisations in Malaysia. The results of the survey indicate that top management, IS coordinator team, ISM team, IS audit team, employees, third parties, IS policy, IS procedures, resource planning, competency development and awareness, risk management, business continuity management, IS audit and IT infrastructure are the factors that contribute to the success of ISM implementation. These factors shall guide practitioners in planning and refining ISM implementation in their organisations.